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Thanks to all of you who have replied so far (some direct to me as well as others on here). There’s an obvious correlation between the switch to online and the general significant decline in feedback. Hard not to see that as causation …
Someone who replied directly to me also hypothesized that part of the issue is that students have figured out the surveys seem to be less relevant than they used to be to profs careers etc. So why would they bother, the person asks?
An excellent undergrad who I happened to be talking to last week was also complaining the questions seem odd and oddly-written (they were talking about dept and univ. level ones as I understood it.). In this case, I explained the shift away from ‘evaluate
the quality of the course/instructor questions as a result of a realization that students couldn’t necessarily judge quality and that evidence shows that those sorts of questions lead to women, BIPOC, Trans faculty, etc. getting lower evaluations. We agreed
this was a good shift … but they maintained the new questions are weird!
Another undergrad, argued that the only way anything changes is when students complain in an extraordinary way about a specific issue/incident and/or the media picks up on something.
That’s about extreme cases though. I always say to them that these are mainly for me: I read them, I especially appreciate written comments, and if I see the same concern recurring I try to adjust the class for the future. Apparently this has little
impact.
Another theory of mine is that these Surveys, in their online form, have melded into the exhausting welter of satisfaction surveys we all get every time we buy a product or service ("Rate your satisfaction with the toothpaste you just bought from Shoppers!").
I never (I assume most people don’t) complete those. Maybe students, as citizens, consumers, are just sick to death of being surveyed (esp. if they don’t see any concrete outcomes). I don’t know ...
As for incentivizing responses with with bonus points (why not chocolate bars?!), as another off-list respondent was advised to do: No. I’m not doing that. Unbelievable.
Thanks again for the responses. Happy to see more experiences/theories sent to this list. It’s a great forum for discussion of various perspectives on important issues!
Best,
Eugene
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Eugene McCann (he/him/his) Professor, Geography Associate Faculty, Sociology & Anthropology Simon Fraser University Managing Editor, EPC: Politics & Space https://journals.sagepub.com/home/epc Minor Revisions podcast https://journals.sagepub.com/page/epc/collections/podcasts Personal website: https://emccanngeog.wordpress.com Contact information: Department of Geography, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, British Columbia, V5A 1S6, Canada Unceded territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Email: emccann@sfu.ca; Phone: 778-782-3321 |