Students Evaluating Faculty: A Subjective Process

摘要

A common practice in colleges and universities across the US is to have students evaluate their faculty members. These evaluations, in most cases, are used for reappointments, promotions, and salary rises. For a longtime, I have believed that this system is subjective to many factors that have nothing to do with the quality and effectiveness of the faculty member. Other research has demonstrated that these evaluations depend of gender, course difficulty, grade expectancy, and other well know factors. This paper is the result of conducting student evaluations every 3 weeks during my last semester of teaching. The data will show that my evaluations fluctuate depending of many factors like weather, difficulty of assignments, mid-semester break, and students' mood.