Though the number of completed class evaluations has increased since last semester, students are only filling out about half of the total evaluations.
Out of more than 154,000 course evaluation surveys, students filled out about 75,000.
The response rate for course evaluations for the fall semester was 49.25 percent, an increase from around 47 percent from the spring 2014 semester, according to the NC State Class Eval Dashboard.
While the amount of completed course evaluations increased from last semester, the university saw a large drop in overall response rate for course evaluations when the system switched from paper to electronic six years ago, according to Jeff Joines, chair of the evaluation of teaching committee.
Additionally, when NC State went to an online course evaluation system, it created its system rather than outsourcing.
In order to try and increase response rates, the evaluation of teaching committee created strategies for teachers who want students to fill more course evaluations.
Though the quantity of responses dropped with the new system, the quality seemed to improve, according to Joines.
“When students filled out the evaluations in-class with one another, peer pressure caused many evaluations to be filled out incorrectly,” Joines said.
However, some professors disagree with this statement and have criticisms for the online system.
Diane Beckman, a teaching assistant professor of foreign language and literature, said when class time was given for written evaluations, students seemed to take them more seriously.
“I have a hard time taking anything seriously that’s done online, under pressure at the last moment,” Beckman said.
Deborah Brown, a senior lecturer in the Poole College of Management, looks for trends in the responses she gets from course evaluations.
“If I have a critical mass that says something similar, a lot of times I’ll change what they’re criticizing,” Brown said.
Renee Brady, a graduate teaching assistant in mathematics, said she uses course evaluations as a personal evaluation to help alter her teaching style.
“A student could say they didn’t like the way I was writing on the board, or the way I spoke, and I would use that to help me teach my next class,” Brady said.
Although the response rate for the fall semester was about 50 percent, some professors feel many students still fail to take the evaluations seriously.
“I think that about 30 percent of students in my classes take them seriously,” Brady said.
Beckman said she encourages constructive criticism throughout the semester and thinks waiting until the end of the semester to fill out a course evaluations is a loss to the student.
“If a student gets to the end of the semester and hasn’t spoken to me about what isn’t working for them, it’s their loss,” Beckman said.
Many students have overlooked course evaluations, which denies their professors the feedback that they need to improve their teaching, according to Brady.
“You want to know what you’re doing good, as well as what you’re doing bad, and then put it together to make a better class,” Brady said.
Joines said many students don’t realize that professors do use the feedback from these evaluations to make decisions about their future courses.
Patrick McLain, a senior studying marketing, said he doesn’t bother filling out course evaluations out because of their length.
“Per semester, that would generally be five course evaluations that I would have to do that are really long,” McLain said.
Other students only bother to complete them if it is for a teacher that they enjoyed. Brady said this is one of the problems that arises when dealing with course evaluations, as sometimes, when a student gets a good grade, they give an evaluation about their great experience in the class, but don’t give any feedback.
Josh Tatum, a senior studying political science, said he takes his course evaluations seriously and fills them out if it’s for a good teacher.
Beckman said it is the important for students to reflect upon what they have learned rather than if they liked the professor or not.
“Some students who get a low grade in the class automatically put the teacher at fault and give them a bad evaluation,” Brady said.
Beckman said submitting a form through the “Thank a Teacher Program” through the Office of Faculty Development would give the teacher more recognition than a good course evaluation.
