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Although at least two professor evaluation systems are available to students, both students and professors agree that neither is very effective.
The student-generated website RateMyProfessor.com offers students personal reviews of university professors and provides students the option to rate their professors on a scale of 0 to 5 in the categories of easiness, helpfulness, clarity and rater interest.
UNM has an average professor rating of 3.76, a .42 increase from last year’s score of 3.34.
UNM’s Individual Development and Educational Assessment (IDEA) form is a survey distributed to students at the end of every semester to evaluate professors through a series of questions. The questions address professors’ clarity, ability to incorporate “hands-on” projects and methods of inspiring students to set and achieve goals.
UNM has distributed the IDEA form since fall of 2008 and spent $60,000 on IDEA forms in FY 2012.
The University publishes the outcomes of the survey for professors to use as constructive criticism for curriculum and teaching practices.
Greek mythology professor Monica Cyrino said Rate My Professor doesn’t always reveal an accurate portrayal of a class or a teacher’s work.
“I have so many students that, probability-wise, I’d probably end up with a very flattering rating, though I don’t think it’s necessarily a comprehensive view of my class or anyone else’s class,” Cyrino said.
Cyrino has consistently received high ratings on the website, with 118 student ratings awarding her a general score of 4.7. Cyrino said she was flattered to have received such a high rating, but she doesn’t personally invest much time in the website.
After looking through the site one day, she said she noticed a poor review that complained about the class’s difficult final exam. Cyrino said her class doesn’t have a final exam. Cyrino said this shows why students shouldn’t trust the website as a valid source.
While Cyrino doesn’t take the website too seriously, she said that because the website is still used by UNM students, it indicates that students want something more than the administration’s current IDEA evaluation form. She said that the student participation on websites like RMP show that students want to have a more pertinent role in critiquing professors and having access to criticism.
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“The current system is the worst written evaluation system I’ve seen in my past 23 years,” she said. “It’s got like 8,000 questions to it, they don’t pertain to the actual class that’s being evaluated, it has all these really meaningless markers. It’s ridiculously long and students don’t want to do them.”
Director of the Office of the Support for Effective Teaching Gary Smith works alongside professors and faculty members who have questions or concerns about the program. He said professors who don’t take the IDEA evaluation forms seriously are missing out on an opportunity for self-improvement.
“If a faculty chooses not to use that information, I think that’s unfortunate because there are certainly a lot of resources that are available to help them make the most of that data,” Smith said. “We’re encouraging faculty to look at what their students are telling them, identify places where they might improve, and might be able to make their intentions from what they’re trying to do in their classes.”
According to the UNM faculty handbook, faculty members are not required to use the IDEA forms, although they are required to submit some type of teaching evaluation for their annual review and tenure-review process. The book doesn’t specify how the evaluation should be implemented.
Academic Technology Liaison Stephen Burd said faculty members can use other evaluation forms, whether self-constructed or pre-established. He said he once used a form different from the IDEA forms for his position as a professor in the Anderson School of Management. While his department chair preferred that he use the IDEA forms, Burd said that because the faculty handbook was silent on which system was required, he used his form regardless.
“You’re going to get a lot of variation across campus — if you’re looking for actual, consistent policy enforced at the university level, there is none,” Burd said. “There is a requirement that faculty provide evidence of their teaching performance, there is an expectation that includes feedback from students, but there isn’t a requirement in the faculty handbook that says that has to come from IDEA.”
Also not defined is how faculty members and administration weigh each evaluation form. While the IDEA forms will maintain some weight in terms of whether a professor will receive some sort of promotion, tenure or be dismissed, Burd said there’s no concrete decision as to how much weight the evaluation forms hold.
“Some department shares tend to look more at the comments than the numbers, if the comments are predominantly positive or there are a lot of positive comments, they may take that with greater rate than the numbers,” he said. “Other chairs look at the numbers and not the comments.”
Burd said members of the administration, including the provost’s office, continue to discuss whether the University wants to keep the IDEA form system. He said the administration is unsure if IDEA is the best system to use for professor evaluations.
“The use of IDEA forms and whether they’re going to continue or whether they’re going to be replaced with some other system, that’s something we’re going to look at this year,” he said. “I don’t know how quickly a decision will be made on that, but it’s part of a discussion.”
Organic chemistry professor Don Bellew said professors should look into Rate My Professor and that it provides a more honest outlook than the IDEA form.
“Students aren’t forced to go on this website, they go on their own volition, so either they’re going there because they had a really good experience or a bad experience,” he said. “I think that might be a little more honest. I think some students just fill in bubbles to get out of this with these IDEA forms.”
Bellew has an average score of 4.5, with a total of 135 student reviews accounting for his score. He said he thinks his high score is due to his work ethic in the classroom.
“I think it’s because I try to do a good job; if you try, students can see that,” he said. “If you don’t try, if you brush students off, they see that and it will be reflected in the IDEA forms and on these reviews.”
