Economist Writing Every Day

Incentives matter. I’ve taught at both public and private universities, and students have given me both great course evaluations and less great student evaluations. The private university cared a lot more about them. Obviously, some parts of student evaluations of their instructors are beyond the instructor’s control. The instructor can’t control inalienables and may not be able to change their charisma. But what about the things that instructors can control? Regardless of your current evals, here are 5 policies that are guaranteed to improve your course evaluations.

1: Very Clear Expectations/Schedule

Have all deadlines determined by the time that the semester starts. Students are busy people and they appreciate the ability to optimally plan their time. Relatedly, students desire respect from their instructor. Having clear rubrics and deadlines helps students know your expectations and how to meet them – or at least understand how they failed to meet them. Students want to feel like they were told the rules of the game ahead of time. This means no arbitrary deductions or deadlines. The syllabus is a contract if you treat it like one.

2: Mid-Semester Evaluations

One of the absolute best ways to improve your evaluation is to ask your evaluators for a performance update. Make a copy of your end-of-semester course evaluation and issue it about halfway through the semester. Then, summarize the feedback and review it with your class. This achieves three goals. (1) It is an opportunity to clarify policy if there are misplaced complaints. You may also wish to explain why policy is what it is. Knowing a good reason makes students more amenable to policies that they otherwise don’t prefer.  (2) It provides voice to students who have things to say. Often, students want to be heard and acknowledged. It’s better that a student vents during the informal mid-semester survey than on the important one at the conclusion of the course. (3) If there are widespread issues with your course, then make changes. If you’re on the fence about something, then take a poll. And if you decide to make changes, then be graciously upfront about it. Unexplained or covert changes violate policy #1.

3: Customized Emails 2-3 Weeks Out

This one works really well but can be time-consuming. Prior to the course evals, email the most active half of participants in your course. These are not always the highest scoring students. Thank them for their efforts/attendance/contributions/conscientiousness/determination and encourage them to finish strong. Be sure to mention something specific about their performance. Don’t lie, but do be willing to say something that they probably don’t hear from other professors. Students will evaluate you better if they think that you care about them. Feel free to carefully use mail-merge. But use caution, students talk to one another. You don’t want to send the same email to multiple people – it might do more harm than good by making your efforts appear insincere.  

4: Prime “Excellent”

Tell your students what you want. If the top score on the course evaluation is ‘excellent’, then tell your students that you strive to be excellent. I explicitly verbalize my efforts to be excellent for them repeatedly throughout the semester. This 100% works and I don’t know the mechanism. IDK whether students feel greater sympathy, or perceive greater effort, are simply exhibiting the effect of a priming treatment. Regardless, strive for excellence and tell them that you are doing it.

5: Customized Grade Calculations

This one works best if you teach the same courses every semester or every year. Use mail-merge to write a customized email to each student after each exam and crunch the numbers concerning their grade. Then, illustrate several scenarios for what their grade will be given different levels of performance. Students usually don’t or can’t calculate their own potential grade and they’ll appreciate the greater certainty – even if it dashes their delusions of success. The savvier students will probably know that you used mail merge, but that’s irrelevant when other professors aren’t willing to put in similar effort.

It doesn’t matter what your teaching style is or what subject you teach. Personally, I teach economics which is a relatively hard topic compared to what students encounter in some of their other classes. Anytime that you teach math, you can expect an automatic deduction on your course evals. But I can attest to all of the above policies. Prior to enacting them, my average course eval was about 85% of my university’s average. After enacting these policies, my evals rose to more like 103% of the average (depending on the semester). I don’t know whether the above policies are ‘hacks’. But they work well considering that they don’t inflate grades or compromise on course content.