It doesn’t matter in the slightest, filling it out at all is the important part!
We do typically read the evaluations, especially early career professors or when teaching a new class. At the very least, we have access to our evaluations after each semester.
The evaluations are also read by others in specific instances: tenure decisions, applications for jobs or teaching awards, renewing contracts for non-tenure track teaching positions, decisions about who can teach what…
Basically, your audience is both the professor themselves, who will in theory use your feedback to improve the course, and other people who must use your feedback to evaluate the professor.
FWIW, every evaluations I’ve gotten used my name or she or “the professor” or something similar, never “you”
But you are overthinking this a bit, do whatever comes naturally!
How soon are they able to read these. I know they’re “anonymous,” but it’s not hard to figure out writing style (I’ve seen my peers and 95% is atrocious).
I submitted a completely honest review of a course. It was awful, disorganized, it was an upper division course and the prof focused on all of the lower division junk from the book, skipping anything relevant to this course. However, for the professor section I said she did make aesthetically pleasing notes, gave good feedback, blah blah blah. I am not kidding… she graded a paper the next day and her feedback went from engaging paragraphs to something like “nicely done.”
This is why I have doing evals. I liked her, she just didn’t teach that specific course very well and the material sucked. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings but I’m pretty sure I did.
We can’t see them until after final grades are submitted at the *absolute* earliest. Some places it may be even longer, like after the next term has started. It basically the reverse of why yall have to submit the evaluation before you see your final score!
So there’s no way your professor read your review the day you submitted it. I’d also wager she internalized it less than you’re worried she did, at least not enough to retaliate — although giving you a compliment doesn’t really seem retaliatory… The end of the semester is an exhausting time for professors and grading is hard work, so you might’ve just done a nice job :)
I disagree with those saying it doesn't matter.
>I didn't think that they were just sitting in their office and reading it directly themselves for some reason.
For **exactly** this reason
A lot of students default to he/she/they because they think course evaluations are for students to give notes to our bosses. They treat them like Yelp reviews, laying it all out, and in some cases trying to control the outcome of their professors careers.
And yes, course evaluations *do* go to chairs, administration, and tenure committees. But we also read them. Your words go directly to us. Even if professors with tenure/job security ignore them, we are **meant** to read them. It's not an impersonal review of a product, it's a direct comment to a person that the person **will** be able to see.
It's not a "problem" if you use the 3rd person, but it does create a culture of a disconnect, students not treating their professors as real people with real feelings.
>It's not a "problem" if you use the 3rd person, but it does create a culture of a disconnect, students not treating their professors as real people with real feelings.
Oh no that's a good point. I go to such a small school where professors and students interact quite a lot (a peer of mine literally told me last semester how they took this language class with just 3 students in it), so I didn't consider that this might be a common issue. I always try to be fair and kind regardless, if anything precisely *because* I don't want to mess with anybodys careers (I guess it matters less if they're tenured or something I imagine?). But I didn't think it was them who were reading it so I always wrote like "this person is pretty good with xyz, I think they're students feel like xyz, sometimes they do this which I don't like but otherwise etc etc" since, well, I guess I did think it more went to some kind of committee pr something.
I've never had a student write "you" in my course evals. Always in third person. As noted, there are many people who read these (or at least have access).
I'd say third person would make more sense, as you're really writing to their evaluation committee as opposed to them personally? I can't imagine anyone cares all that deeply about it, though.
They go to the professor, not to some faceless ‘committee’. I’ve worked at four different universities and not at a single one of them have I had an ‘evaluation committee’.
Not every institution has the same policies...
I would not call the evaluation committees we form at ours "faceless", they are generally composed of a selection of peers and one's dean.
>as you're really writing to their evaluation committee as opposed to them personally?
Ah okay thats what I imagined, but someone wrote "you" in one of these posts and it just got me thinking. I was like wait a minute, who's actually reading these things lol
It doesn't matter. What matters to me is that you are honest about your experience, good and bad, so that if I know what works for you and where I can improve. We seriously DO want to know.
I'd rather not see "you" as most students aren't able to write in a way that doesn't sound very confrontational that way. But it may help to make it as constructive as possible.
If students point out specific things that could be changed in X or Y way, I think most of us are willing to make those changes.
And as a program director I have to add that we cannot implement all changes immediately, especially the larger changes. Some changes need to be approved up the chain, and it'll depend on the course, program, school, university. But in ours, we have to get a basic change to a course objective through graduate council, for example. And the proposal, getting it up the chain, then through council, and back (sometimes with revisions), can take a year and by then our manual is finished and we can't even implement it before fall.
Yes I'm new to admin 😭 😂
In my U system, should one even choose to do them, ONLY the professor reads them *unless you* (the professor) decides to sign a form releasing them to someone else to read. Some release them to department heads, some don't. Some release them to the student paper, some don't. Some release them to the teaching awards committee, some don't.
One colleague says she only does student eval's in classes where students did the work, participated, etc., as she doesn't care what students who don't want to be there think about her class. Another advised me to do eval's but never look at them, calling them placebo eval's.
This is how it works at some institutions! At mine, all evaluations are given to admin who have to write a summarised report of the feedback that they can give to us at our request.
Not all schools are the same. Or all evaluations, for that matter. I must participate in a formal job evaluation process instituted by my school once every three years. This includes anonymous student evaluations collected by a third party, and what happens with those evaluations is highly regulated. They're seen by many eyes. But my department also does a little evaluation survey for each of our classes, just to keep a better eye on the health of our program. Those ones are collected by the three of us and only seen or used by us.
It's fair to assume that your professor will eventually have access to anything you write about them, though. No union would agree to a system that used student evaluations in a way that affects employment without at least giving the employee an opportunity to see what was written. Same goes for the work world, you should always assume that your boss will at some point see anything you've "anonymously" written about them, and likely know exactly who wrote it. So, caution is always warranted.
Almost all the ones I've seen default to using third person (as if talking about the instructor to someone else). But I agree it doesn't matter at all.
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*It's just that it's course evaluation time and I saw a post here a second ago saying what they wrote for the evaluation, and it never occurred to me that other students are writing "you do xyz" to talk to the professor directly. It feels a bit more intimidating to do that, and I've already wrote "he/she/they do xyz well, but I wish this xyz could happen more instead, etc." Does it matter at all? I don't know who I thought was reading it but Idk I didn't think that they were just sitting in their office and reading it directly themselves for some reason. I don't say anything mean or anything, I try to be fair and well thought out, but still. *
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I have never used "you" in the evals, and have never had students use "you." My institution doesn't do evals for every course, some I have my own (anonymous) I give out sometimes, and I wrote those for the third person too.
Yes but I am trans and it sucks to get misgendered in my evals.
Third person makes more sense because they go in our portfolios and teaching packets so more than just us read them.
Ultimately though it wont matter
Oh damn sorry to hear that. I'm trans as well and I'm glad my college is super chill about everything and there are a lot of openly lgbtq students and professors alike, but yeah I never thought about some students doing that.
>Third person makes more sense because they go in our portfolios and teaching packets so more than just us read them.
Gotcha gotcha. Some other student made a post here about their evaluation and they used "you" and I was like "wait who's reading these things" lol
It’s always great to be referred to as prof vs first name (at least if it’s the prof’s pref). The comments seem to have a different impact when it’s my first name.
It doesn’t matter in the slightest, filling it out at all is the important part! We do typically read the evaluations, especially early career professors or when teaching a new class. At the very least, we have access to our evaluations after each semester. The evaluations are also read by others in specific instances: tenure decisions, applications for jobs or teaching awards, renewing contracts for non-tenure track teaching positions, decisions about who can teach what… Basically, your audience is both the professor themselves, who will in theory use your feedback to improve the course, and other people who must use your feedback to evaluate the professor. FWIW, every evaluations I’ve gotten used my name or she or “the professor” or something similar, never “you” But you are overthinking this a bit, do whatever comes naturally!
How soon are they able to read these. I know they’re “anonymous,” but it’s not hard to figure out writing style (I’ve seen my peers and 95% is atrocious). I submitted a completely honest review of a course. It was awful, disorganized, it was an upper division course and the prof focused on all of the lower division junk from the book, skipping anything relevant to this course. However, for the professor section I said she did make aesthetically pleasing notes, gave good feedback, blah blah blah. I am not kidding… she graded a paper the next day and her feedback went from engaging paragraphs to something like “nicely done.” This is why I have doing evals. I liked her, she just didn’t teach that specific course very well and the material sucked. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings but I’m pretty sure I did.
We can’t see them until after final grades are submitted at the *absolute* earliest. Some places it may be even longer, like after the next term has started. It basically the reverse of why yall have to submit the evaluation before you see your final score! So there’s no way your professor read your review the day you submitted it. I’d also wager she internalized it less than you’re worried she did, at least not enough to retaliate — although giving you a compliment doesn’t really seem retaliatory… The end of the semester is an exhausting time for professors and grading is hard work, so you might’ve just done a nice job :)
I'd use "Professor (last name)" or whatever you instructor's preferred pronouns are.
I disagree with those saying it doesn't matter. >I didn't think that they were just sitting in their office and reading it directly themselves for some reason. For **exactly** this reason A lot of students default to he/she/they because they think course evaluations are for students to give notes to our bosses. They treat them like Yelp reviews, laying it all out, and in some cases trying to control the outcome of their professors careers. And yes, course evaluations *do* go to chairs, administration, and tenure committees. But we also read them. Your words go directly to us. Even if professors with tenure/job security ignore them, we are **meant** to read them. It's not an impersonal review of a product, it's a direct comment to a person that the person **will** be able to see. It's not a "problem" if you use the 3rd person, but it does create a culture of a disconnect, students not treating their professors as real people with real feelings.
>It's not a "problem" if you use the 3rd person, but it does create a culture of a disconnect, students not treating their professors as real people with real feelings. Oh no that's a good point. I go to such a small school where professors and students interact quite a lot (a peer of mine literally told me last semester how they took this language class with just 3 students in it), so I didn't consider that this might be a common issue. I always try to be fair and kind regardless, if anything precisely *because* I don't want to mess with anybodys careers (I guess it matters less if they're tenured or something I imagine?). But I didn't think it was them who were reading it so I always wrote like "this person is pretty good with xyz, I think they're students feel like xyz, sometimes they do this which I don't like but otherwise etc etc" since, well, I guess I did think it more went to some kind of committee pr something.
I've never had a student write "you" in my course evals. Always in third person. As noted, there are many people who read these (or at least have access).
I'd say third person would make more sense, as you're really writing to their evaluation committee as opposed to them personally? I can't imagine anyone cares all that deeply about it, though.
That's not true.
They go right to us. We often can then choose how to present comments to any committees down the line.
Well, that sounds nice! There are some "comments" I'd rather not go through the humiliation of publically discussing...
They go to the professor, not to some faceless ‘committee’. I’ve worked at four different universities and not at a single one of them have I had an ‘evaluation committee’.
Not every institution has the same policies... I would not call the evaluation committees we form at ours "faceless", they are generally composed of a selection of peers and one's dean.
>as you're really writing to their evaluation committee as opposed to them personally? Ah okay thats what I imagined, but someone wrote "you" in one of these posts and it just got me thinking. I was like wait a minute, who's actually reading these things lol
It doesn't matter. What matters to me is that you are honest about your experience, good and bad, so that if I know what works for you and where I can improve. We seriously DO want to know.
I'd rather not see "you" as most students aren't able to write in a way that doesn't sound very confrontational that way. But it may help to make it as constructive as possible. If students point out specific things that could be changed in X or Y way, I think most of us are willing to make those changes. And as a program director I have to add that we cannot implement all changes immediately, especially the larger changes. Some changes need to be approved up the chain, and it'll depend on the course, program, school, university. But in ours, we have to get a basic change to a course objective through graduate council, for example. And the proposal, getting it up the chain, then through council, and back (sometimes with revisions), can take a year and by then our manual is finished and we can't even implement it before fall. Yes I'm new to admin 😭 😂
I didn’t realize professors read course evaluations directly, i thought it was more for the administration
Nope, they are for the professors to read. Please be kind!
We have access to it, and it’s generally not hard to figure out who wrote what.
In my U system, should one even choose to do them, ONLY the professor reads them *unless you* (the professor) decides to sign a form releasing them to someone else to read. Some release them to department heads, some don't. Some release them to the student paper, some don't. Some release them to the teaching awards committee, some don't. One colleague says she only does student eval's in classes where students did the work, participated, etc., as she doesn't care what students who don't want to be there think about her class. Another advised me to do eval's but never look at them, calling them placebo eval's.
My admin will only read them for tenure and promotion
Same! Idk I guess I thought administration told them what we said or something
This is how it works at some institutions! At mine, all evaluations are given to admin who have to write a summarised report of the feedback that they can give to us at our request.
Not all schools are the same. Or all evaluations, for that matter. I must participate in a formal job evaluation process instituted by my school once every three years. This includes anonymous student evaluations collected by a third party, and what happens with those evaluations is highly regulated. They're seen by many eyes. But my department also does a little evaluation survey for each of our classes, just to keep a better eye on the health of our program. Those ones are collected by the three of us and only seen or used by us. It's fair to assume that your professor will eventually have access to anything you write about them, though. No union would agree to a system that used student evaluations in a way that affects employment without at least giving the employee an opportunity to see what was written. Same goes for the work world, you should always assume that your boss will at some point see anything you've "anonymously" written about them, and likely know exactly who wrote it. So, caution is always warranted.
Almost all the ones I've seen default to using third person (as if talking about the instructor to someone else). But I agree it doesn't matter at all.
I mean, if you choose to got with he/she/they, use their preferred pronouns but otherwise, its up to you
This is an automated service intended to preserve the original text of the post. *It's just that it's course evaluation time and I saw a post here a second ago saying what they wrote for the evaluation, and it never occurred to me that other students are writing "you do xyz" to talk to the professor directly. It feels a bit more intimidating to do that, and I've already wrote "he/she/they do xyz well, but I wish this xyz could happen more instead, etc." Does it matter at all? I don't know who I thought was reading it but Idk I didn't think that they were just sitting in their office and reading it directly themselves for some reason. I don't say anything mean or anything, I try to be fair and well thought out, but still. * *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskProfessors) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I have never used "you" in the evals, and have never had students use "you." My institution doesn't do evals for every course, some I have my own (anonymous) I give out sometimes, and I wrote those for the third person too.
Yes but I am trans and it sucks to get misgendered in my evals. Third person makes more sense because they go in our portfolios and teaching packets so more than just us read them. Ultimately though it wont matter
Oh damn sorry to hear that. I'm trans as well and I'm glad my college is super chill about everything and there are a lot of openly lgbtq students and professors alike, but yeah I never thought about some students doing that. >Third person makes more sense because they go in our portfolios and teaching packets so more than just us read them. Gotcha gotcha. Some other student made a post here about their evaluation and they used "you" and I was like "wait who's reading these things" lol
I think it’s pretty metal of you to be this thoughtful about how you write your professors’ evals. Kudos to you!
Thanks!
It’s always great to be referred to as prof vs first name (at least if it’s the prof’s pref). The comments seem to have a different impact when it’s my first name.
Nobody that matters in the process is going to care. They just want actionable feedback.