Student Evaluation of Teacher Performance

TEACHING INVOLVES a continuing self-awareness and critical review of procedures. This is especially true at the graduate level where student maturity, experience, and motivation challenge the instructor. There is a danger of what I like to call the "god complex" because one is the final arbiter and authority. Getting valid and reliable feedback from students is difficult. Verbal responses by students are likely to be skewed because of the tendency for talkative students to talk and quiet students to be quiet. Few students are likely to strongly criticize a teacher to his face before the final grades are in. Some students may compliment teachers to try to influence the teacher's attitude to them. And who of us is totally lacking positive response to praise? I would like to report a feedback technique that I have been using at the Graduate School of Library Science, Drexel Institute of Technology. It is an anonymous, written, open-ended questionnaire administered in the last session of class after the students have received their term grades. (It is my custom to give term grades at the beginning of the last session.) The general questions follow: