Arts and Sciences Council Considers New Course Evaluations

"The Green Sheet" - the course evaluation form used by students - is a Duke tradition, but few people seem to have kind words to say about it. Students never like filling out the forms at the end of the semester, and teachers have more than a few concerns about their accuracy and efficacy. Yet, faculty, administrators and students all say they need the evaluation forms as one of the best methods for collecting information about courses and the quality of teaching. And after one failed effort to find an online alternative, Arts and Sciences faculty members are back to debating about how to improve the form. It's not proving easy. The Arts and Sciences Council on Dec. 16 got its first official look at a proposed form developed by a group led by Dean Robert Thompson and endorsed by Provost Peter Lange. The form has different questions than The Green Sheet, but includes the potential for more expanded comments, which Thompson said provide the most valuable information for faculty and students alike. Thompson is proposing using the form for a test semester this spring, then revisiting the question in the fall. The new questions, which Thompson said were developed with the help of the most recent national research on course evaluation forms, focus on general areas. Students are asked about why they took the course, the course characteristics, course organization, student-teacher interaction and rapport, course assignments and overall appraisal. Students also are asked to appraise their progress over the semester in areas such as factual knowledge, understanding fundamental concepts, learning to integrate information and learning to evaluate competing claims. In presenting the form to the council, Lange said the administration wanted a form that could better measure course instruction, could compare classes against other courses at Duke, be machine readable, would stimulate additional comments from students and would provide useful information for appointments, promotions and tenure decisions. "We think the new form will achieve that mix of goals and will do so in a way that is better than the current system," Lange said. "We can use this information to tell students about courses, and do a better job of it than the 'grapevine' that students seem to use now. Students have always sought information about courses, and we want to ensure the information they get is accurate and useful." Hanging over the effort is an attempt by Duke Student Government to come up with an online course evaluation system that would be run by students. This system would replace an online system that was pulled last year after teachers complained it was attracting too few comments and was plagued with inaccuracies. A DSG representative was at the council meeting endorsing the new form developed by the Thompson group. Thompson said if the council approves the new form it would render the DSG effort moot, but that without the form the student project would go forward. Nevertheless, there were some faculty concerns about the proposed form. They included questions about the wording of some items, about who would have access to the data, about the quality of the comments on the form, even about whether a form was necessary at all. Since the forms can be used in APT decisions, faculty members have good reason to pay attention to the student responses. Lange was asked whether the form would encourage students to think more deeply about the course experience than The Green Sheet. "I had my own staff try the form as an experiment," he said. "In general it took 10-15 minutes, which is longer than with the Green Sheet, but not by much. Some of my staff thought it limited additional comments, but others thought that it stimulated such comments. I think that's reason for us to try it out and find out how it works." The council will resume the discussion in January, and council chair Steve Baldwin said it's likely a vote will occur then.