Boris Mityagin on pseudo-evaluations

A letter by Boris Mityagin, "Student Evaluations, Grades, and the
Internet," was published in the August 2006 issue of NOTICES, Page
742, and is available at:

http://www.ams.org/notices/200607/commentary.pdf

It is truly exasperating to see how administrators are using student
evaluations in completely absurd ways-and how these misuses are
promoting the continuing pseudo-education of so many pseudo-educated
students.

Based on my experiences, about 5% of my student evaluations have
provided useful information that I have used to modify my courses. I am
particularly baffled by the bipolar distribution of these evaluations,
especially when you have an equal number of students writing exactly
the opposite comments, e.g.

He goes too fast and doesn't explain anything/ He goes at a
reasonable pace and explains everything clearly.

The tests and quizzes are nothing like the material covered in class/
The tests and quizzes cover the material done in class.

Serial Killfiler...

When I was a TA (a million years ago) the evaluations were scored
using a point system, and that ensured that such contradictory
comments canceled each other numerically. Not that the process was
necessarily more useful for that fact.

Dom Rosa