Navigating Negative Student Evaluations

Although these evaluations are an essential component of feedback, they can sometimes be very upsetting for faculty. We all know how hard we have worked to put a course together and run it well, especially over this past year. When we get negative comments about our course or our teaching, they are sometimes hard to swallow, knowing the students have no idea how many hours, late nights, and weekends we put in to make this course the best we could.

Throughout my many years of reading student evaluations, both my own and the rest of the faculty in my leadership roles, mostly there are only a few negative ones. Yet, these few tend to be the ones that cause significant suffering for the faculty member. This year, as faculty, we may feel a bit more vulnerable and sensitive because, along with our students, we are overwhelmed, frustrated, exhausted, Zoom fatigued, and stretched to our limits. We didn’t choose this either. But we had to make it work. And we did, against significant challenges and barriers. Remember that.

Although these negative comments may hurt our ego and sensibilities, they don’t define us. Not now, not even after this year, not ever. Remember, this is information we can sift through to find something useful, which can help us grow as teachers. And some of it, you just leave.

Here are a few suggestions to help you navigate your course evaluations.

Don’t take it personally

I once had a faculty member who was so upset and infuriated by a negative comment that she pulled all the course evaluations and samples of all of the student’s handwriting until she felt she had identified the student who wrote the comment.  I get it. It can feel incredibly unjust as if you have been invalidated as a person and teacher.

I bet somewhere along the way you have heard someone say this to you  – don’t take it personally. It’s the truth. Some comments are simply not worth the time or upset. You just need to leave them - let it go. Words, I know, that, at times, are hard to implement. Here is the thing - it doesn’t define you unless you let it. You are the only one suffering. I can guarantee you the student has moved on and not thinking about it at all.  I know, on some level, that may further infuriate you. The truth is you are only responsible for yourself, what you think, how you act and react, and what you feel. What and how will you choose? If you are still having a hard time letting go– talk with a trusted colleague or friend so they can help you get things back into perspective. Don’t let it fester inside of you. I remain fascinated by the fact that we are like Teflon for the positive and Velcro for the negative comments. Somehow we need to flip that around.

Let me point out that I am not condoning in any way inappropriate and unprofessional student comments. If they are that egregious, there should be a mechanism to address the student who wrote it.

Here are a few other things to consider to help you not take these comments personally. First, if the completion of these evaluations is not mandatory, we know that many students won’t fill them out. Happy or content students tend not to respond, but those that are disgruntled or unhappy do. So the information is skewed. Second and more commonly, if they are mandatory, students tend to rush through it so they can be done and do not take the time to reflect and respond thoughtfully. Third, if a student is upset or annoyed about something else or other issues with the program, the negativity may be stemming from that and not your course or you.

Pick a place and time to review

I have found it helpful to suggest that faculty pick a calming place and time to review the evaluations and not right after the semester ends, given the flurry of activity and responsibility that happens at that time. But experience has taught me that faculty can’t help themselves, and as soon as they are available, faculty immediately dive into them. I eventually stopped releasing them until a week or two into the next semester, and it seemed to help some. I recommend that before you start reading, it can be helpful if you take a few moments to create an open mindset instead of feeling like you have to brace for impact. Try to focus on exploring whether there is even the slightest something that may be learned or helpful from the negative comment. 

Look for patterns.

The key here is to look for patterns, themes, and frequency in the comments. This approach is valid for both positive and negative ones.  I think we all do this to a degree.  For example, if the majority (frequency) of the students rated a guest speaker high, we are likely to keep that speaker (as long as they covered the specified material). The opposite is also true if the majority rated a speaker low. We tend to look a little harder at what they didn’t like about the speaker and determine whether or not to bring them back. If there are only one or two similar negative comments about the faculty member or the course, it doesn’t rise to a level of actionable attention. However, if there is a cluster of negative responses about one particular aspect of the course, this is valuable information and warrants a further look.

Looking for frequency, patterns, and trends helps us focus where we need to since the whole idea behind evaluations is to help us continue to grow and become better teachers. If we focus only on the outliers and the few negative comments, we have missed seeing the forest through the trees.

Put it in perspective

When I have had to work through some of the negative comments in my course evaluations, what has helped me is to step back to try and see things from the student’s perspective. They are on the receiving side of the course, and while I have at times been convinced that my organization of a particular activity in class was outstanding, the students don’t always receive it that way. So when I feel my sense of injustice rising at a comment, I try to shift and look at it through their eyes to see if there is anything in their feedback that makes sense and can be helpful.  I think of these evaluations as a useful point of reference to help me gain insight into how the students are receiving and experiencing the course, including my teaching, that led them to make such a comment.

The other thing to keep in mind is that student comments are not always grounded in reality, truth, or accuracy. They can make statements that reflect their lack of course engagement or comprehension when they complain about the workload or some dynamic of the course but cite it incorrectly—for example, complaining about quizzes every week when there were four across a 16-week semester. Stating the papers required too much work given the short amount of time when there was only one paper for which they had the entire semester to complete with feedback along the way. Sometimes their frustrations and fears skew their perceptions.

Other aspects to consider that can reduce negative or unhelpful student comments.

Ask for feedback sooner

I would venture to guess we have all been perplexed to learn that students significantly struggled with some aspects of the course but never said anything to us. Instead, we are learning about it for the first time as we read the course evaluations. Truth be told, if they had let us know sooner, we could have made a change. I have found that sometimes students don’t want to speak up. However, providing a mid-course evaluation – something brief that focuses on how things are going in the class, what is working well, what isn’t working, and any concerns, can be amazingly insightful and helpful. It lets the students voice their concerns indirectly while the course is running, and it provides you with the opportunity to take that information and make adjustments you feel are valid. When students see that you took this feedback to heart and made changes, it means a lot.  

Set ground rules

Ensuring student evaluation would be anonymous was the carrot we use to dangle to get them to fill the evaluations out. However, the cloak of anonymity and invisibility provided by social media has crossed over into student evaluations. I have observed the concerning increased level of caustic and brazen language that crosses appropriateness, civility, and professionalism. This behavior happens despite clearly communicating, many times to the students, that their comments on these forms must be respectful and constructive. So, in one program, we went to a different system that was confidential but not anonymous. We felt it was vital that we be able to address such unacceptable behavior when needed. Otherwise, there was no accountability on the part of the student.

Although students still did not provide their names on the form, they knew that if there was a concern about something they wrote, the program director could request the student's identification. We were able to do this because the evaluations were generated and stored outside the program. Students had to log in to the survey with their university e-mail. Therefore, their IP address was recorded. We were concerned this might limit what students wrote, but there were no indications that it did. And yes, there were a few occasions when we had to do this and address the student directly.

Student evaluations are an essential part of the educational process. They help us appreciate how the student experienced the course and provide invaluable information that helps us continue to grow and evolve our teaching and courses. The key is to look for valuable information and let the other stuff go.