Like all the others, this quarter is going fast and is nearing its conclusion. That means that, within the next couple weeks, students will be frantically writing papers, completing class projects and cramming for finals. That also means students will be asked to fill out surveys about their classes and instructors.
One of the evaluations being pushed is the online SEI, or Student Evaluation of Instruction. Students simply log onto a website, fill in a few bubbles and log out. Not difficult. But many students pay no attention to these surveys. In fact, according to an April 29 Lantern article (“Online evals called ‘ineffective'”), less than 47 percent of students filled them out in autumn 2009.
This apparent lack of interest among students concerns many university administrators and even prompted some faculty and staff in the History Department to circulate a petition about the survey’s ineffectiveness.
However, common sense says the online response rates will be lower than paper surveys because students must jump an extra hurdle to fill them out. Sure, everyone on this campus is technologically literate enough to complete an online survey. But why would anybody want to?
By the end of the quarter, students don’t even want to do work that directly affects their grade, let alone something that has little impact on their future. Often we hear that the surveys are important because instructors use them to improve their teaching and that future students benefit from honest evaluations. Regardless of whether this is true, it is unrealistic to expect online returns to be has high as paper and pencil.
But does it really matter if as many people complete the online surveys? People who fill them out are more likely to hold an extreme opinion — good or bad — about an instructor. This is presented as a negative, that the moderate majority is not being heard. However, the SEI website specifically says: “Scores that are at the extreme ends of the range provide the most significant information.” If that is true, and it makes sense that it would be, then why is everybody so worried about hearing from the indecisive middle?
I am not urging students to boycott online SEIs. If clicking on tiny bubbles makes you happy, have at it. But university administrators must make a decision. They should either allow all students to fill out the surveys in class, thus ensuring a higher response rate, or keep them online with the understanding that the returns will be drastically reduced. If students’ opinions really are coveted, then surely it is worth missing some class time to complete the evaluations.
Some universities have opted for the tyrannical solution of withholding grades from students until they complete the evaluations. This will never happen at Ohio State because I would like to believe the student body would never stand for it. This extreme tactic, besides being unfair to students, is also unfair to instructors. There would be no better way to negatively skew the results of an evaluation than to withhold important information from students until they complete a trivial survey.
If the university is committed to upholding the online process, then I might have a moderate suggestion. Offer 1 percent bonus to any student who fills out the online survey. It is a rather timid number, but that is precisely why it would be effective. It would be enough to encourage students to devote their time, yet it is small enough not to skew the opinions of the students and the survey results.
I understand this suggestion is middle-of-the-road. But, then again, that seems to be what the university likes.
