Job Discussion Forums

[gaijinalways]

I saw from another thread that some Japanese universities don't survey some of their help. Currently, all 4 universities I work at survey all their help (both part-time and full) each semester.

What I was wondering was;

How often does your university survey your students in your classes?

Does your university survey both full time and part-time lecturers?

What kind of questions does the survey include?

What questions do you use (if any and if your university has this option for lecturer generated questions) on the survey?

Are the results published on a timely basis?

What languages are they published in?

Do you think the survey system is a good one?

Do you feel the answers given by students are valid and help you in your teaching?

I will share later on my own thoughts and experience, don't wish to influence too many people as yet. I'd also like to hear from other countries besides Japan as I am curious who else has been surveyed.

[TheLongWayHome]

Teachers get surveyed once a term here and it never goes down well. I think this partly due to the inconsistency of student responses. In Mexico, first impressions go a long way and what it usually comes down to on the survey is whether the students like you or not. If they like you, you�ll get high scores regardless of the categories on the survey. For example, there is a question about video usage in the classroom, students are asked to grade you between 1 and 5 (5 being the highest). I never used video yet the students liked me so they put 5s in that category.

Lower level students get the survey in Spanish, the higher levels in English. Teachers get to see students� individual (anonymous) comments for their own classes and statistics are published for every class for all the teachers to see, though without the names. This causes the most friction.

I think there is a lot of value in seeing the students� individual comments, especially in Mexico as students tend not to speak out in class if they�re having problems or don�t understand something. As for the stats, this just leaves teachers wondering what they are used for and what the purpose is of rating teachers then publishing their ratings side by side.

[ls650]

[mondrian]

I do three surveys a semester:
1. The student examination. That tells us both what (if anything) has been understood about my course
2. At the beginning of the course I ask them their expectations and other specific questions about their language learning
3. At the end of the course I try to find out their reaction to the course given and to suggest any improvements or amendments.

They of course do a survey on me as a teacher. But that I regard as a waste of time and paper, as nothing is ever said to me about it and students who have never attended my class and who I have failed have an equal say as all the others.
There is never any peer survey done in my Uni.

[Glenski]

[mondrian]

[gaijinalways]

Interesting, I see quite a few people feel students lie (or maybe better would have been to say they misstated) their impressions of the activities in the class. Personally, I think unless the universities allow teachers to conduct their own surveys and use the results for thmselves, most of the time the survey is a bit useless (and the money would be better spent on something else).

I have sometimes made my own surveys, and I do think the comments can be useful, but I also take with a grain of salt some of the students' comments. I have students claim that we never used the text, when we have used it every class! Student perceptions are sometimes very judgemental also, about how activities are related to the text and how practical the English in a class is. Some students think only things related with passing an exam are useful, completely overlooking the communicative aspect of the language (any language for that matter).

What I really don't like is that the survey results are compliled by department and class, and comparisons are made. But because the teaching activities, textbooks, and content is often totally different, the results are meaningless. It basically often comes down to;
less complaints, more popular teacher= better teacher !

So, a worse case scenario was like this;

Teacher A never used the assigned text (by the university) in the class for 1 year. His classes were a 50/50 mix of Japanese and English and often had a 'field trip' outside the classroom each class which consisted of walking around and relaxing, followed by free conversation in the langauge of your choice.

Teacher B used the text, used interactive activities, had some semi-free conversation included, and actually (horrors) seriously taught the students some useful English.

Guess which teacher was rated higher ?