STUDENT Council passed resolutions last week asking the administration to tweak the course evaluation system and commending the University community for increased participation in it. As the online system nears completion with the addition of public evaluation data to the course offering directory next fall, there is no discourse on the consequences of circulating course evaluation data to students. Although some take evaluations and course content seriously, students may use evaluation data to select "easy" courses and grade-inflating professors.
On the online course evaluations which debuted last semester, students are encouraged to answer six questions in addition to department-specific evaluations. The data is compiled and accessed through the Course Offering Directory. Browsing the University's diverse offerings, then, becomes a student's search for the easiest courses, or "guts," not informed decisions based on past educational experiences.
Interesting departments, course titles, past syllabi and professor descriptions succumb to questions of "Is it an easy A?" or "Will I have a lot of work?" Students are concerned with workload and certain requirements (i.e. writing papers, loads of reading or exams). Granted, some students may value content over the amount of work, but many strive to find hidden guts and easy courses to satisfy major and area requirements. Two evaluation questions address these student concerns: "The average number of hours per week I spent outside of class" and "The instructor's goals and requirements were defined and adhered to by the instructor." The public course evaluation data becomes the means to select easy course loads and avoid challenging coursework.
In addition, the course instructor column, especially those with multiple sections, bring professor reputation to the forefront of student decision-making processes. The evaluation's specific statement is, "Overall, the instructor was an effective teacher." Yet these statements do not define "effective," which should address the duties of academic professors to enrich the student's intellectualism. Some of the "hardest" or most feared professors on Grounds are the best professors or most reputable scholars. Although high-quality professors should achieve both of these objectives, students may fail to realize that sometimes it takes a demanding, critical professor to teach complex disciplines and improve academic performance.
The formalization of this process, therefore, may deter academic endeavors and stimulating undergraduate experiences. Granted, the remaining three questions regard admirable qualities -- amount of material learned, professor accessibility outside of class and the overall academic value of the course. Yet even without this institutionalized data process, students have opportunities to research course backgrounds. Toolkit publicizes past course syllabi, RateMyProfessors.com, Echols Council and The Cavalier Daily generate data on University professors, and the COD includes course descriptions. The most effective resource, however, is student-faculty interaction. Students should visit professors' office hours to learn more about course requirements or talk to other professors and staff in the department.
The aforementioned options are time-consuming for both students and professors, and therefore, due to student demands, Student Council sponsored the initiation of public evaluation data. Yet the averaged data may not depict enlightened merits of a course's academic value. This requires student-faculty relations, accurate course descriptions and students' motivations to accept challenges and not fear large amounts of coursework.
Daniel Young, Student Council Academic Affairs chair, responded that scientific research disproves the notion that students favor less challenging courses. However, studies of course ratings are based on the same research methods as course evaluations -- will students admit their desire to enroll in courses that guarantee superior grades?
Students may also prefer those qualities which lower teaching standards (less work and higher grades), whereas the department is optimizing students' academic experiences. Some may scoff at this statement and decry the parental role of University departments, administrators and staff. Yet should we entrust our academic standards and expectations to other undergraduates?
Students should have access to course information in order to make informed course selections. Yet as undergraduates, students do not have the same expertise as professors or department staffs. Therefore, students need to base decisions on data that discounts student concerns of heavy workloads and poor grades.
Granted, there are students who share the same concerns as faculty members and appreciate competitive grading and ambitious course loads. However, published course evaluation data cannot distinguish between the content-driven student and the time-saver student. The COD should be a listing of countless intriguing courses and departments, not an averaged index of student moans of heavy workloads and grade deflation.
Michael Behr's column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at mbehr@cavalierdaily.com.
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