Students can view results of course evaluations when registering for classes

Before committing to his fall schedule, Nathan Tune, a political science sophomore, checks out the evaluations of his future teachers online to see how demanding other students found the instructors.

Although he does not put all of his faith in them, he's conscious of the ratings students have given to his prospective teachers.

"I take word of mouth more seriously," Tune said.

This week and next, students will be filling out teacher course evaluations, questionnaires that assess courses and faculty. The results are posted on the Internet for University of Arizona students and faculty to see, but the impact of the evaluations varies among departments.

Along with other elements like course materials and peer evaluations, teacher course evaluations are taken into consideration for faculty promotion and tenure.

"Most departments use our system and make use of the evaluations," said Elena Berman, assessment and faculty development specialist. "But the specifics of that is not something we have control of."

Departments do not use the evaluations as much as they should, said Associated Students of the University of Arizona President Ray Quintero.

They are mainly effective for students to use when choosing classes, but faculty who have received bad evaluations are still around, Quintero said.

These evaluations are a valid way of judging teaching, said Rick Kroc, director of curricular and enrollment research.

"But some faculty believe that it's a popularity contest," Kroc said. "I don't think that's the case. I think that part of being a good instructor is being a good communicator and keeping students' attention."

David Schmidtz, a philosophy professor, takes the evaluations seriously.

"I think that they would be more valuable if students took more time to make written comments," Schmidtz said.

Teacher course evaluations can be effective if attention is paid to them, said Ashley Perry, an accounting junior.

"I've had some classes where I definitely put what I felt on them," Perry said.

In some cases, the teacher-course evaluation is the only thing that is used to evaluate a teacher's work, Kroc said.

The process of gathering student input, peer observations and course material evaluations is time consuming, Kroc said.

"That's the kind of assessment I'd like to see," he said. "But it's not likely to be a common occurrence. We can't turn the whole campus into an evaluation network."

Teacher course evaluations are used in retention and promotion decisions, said Kathryn Bayles, department head of speech and hearing sciences.

Bonus points are awarded to faculty in that department who use focus groups, workshops or the university teaching center to improve teaching, Bayles said.

"Some years, when the Legislature gives us the money, we have merit money to give faculty," Bayles said.

Evaluation reports can sometimes be confusing, Schmidtz said. "Sometimes we don't have enough data on how we compare to the average," he said. "It takes a lot of work to develop a formula."

There is no specific formula to incorporate the teacher course evaluations in the economics department, said Mark Walker, economics department head.

Excellent evaluations results in good things like salary increases, Walker said. "Most departments have a spectrum in terms of abilities. We have some star teachers and some people not in that category."

Within the next month, faculty will be able to access results for all of their teaching evaluations online with a username and password, Kroc said.

Students can view teacher evaluations at http://aer.arizona.edu.