Online vitriol prompts assessment rethink

There is growing concern within universities that student evaluations of teaching are being used as a platform to launch defamatory, racist, misogynistic and homophobic comments against staff.

The purpose of these non-compulsory, anonymously completed online surveys – a common, annual review process at the end of set periods – is for university leaders to gather feedback, which often plays a role in decisions about the retention, appointment and promotion of academics.

Two forms of data are usually generated by the evaluations: numeric scores tied to questions, and qualitative data in the form of student comments.

While few would dismiss the importance of feedback, university administrators are increasingly being made aware of shortcomings associated with these tools.

The growing level of disquiet associated with these student evaluations was portrayed in The Chair, a Netflix comedy-drama profiling academic life. In one scene, a professor burns her student evaluations after confessing she has not read one since the 1980s.

One of the shortcomings associated with teaching evaluations is survey fatigue, brought about by students being inundated with these questionnaires.

As a result, there are smaller sample sizes with results not necessarily representative of all who completed a particular course during any given teaching period.

There is also some disquiet that students who do end up completing the surveys are more likely to be those with an axe to grind, further distorting the results.

It is also true that some students assign low scores to teachers because of matters outside their academic responsibility; for example, a lack of a library or information technology services.

Perhaps more damning, however, is mounting concern that the anonymous structure of surveys delivers more personal opinions of staff than feedback about their teaching performance.

The full extent of those opinions, based on the experience of almost 800 academics, was revealed in a study undertaken by Southern Cross University researchers and published in the Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education journal late last year.

The academics were surveyed about their experience of anonymous student evaluations and specifically the ‘non-constructive’ comments they received.

Academics reported attacks on their appearance, background and character, as well as threats and calls for their punishment.

One academic, for example, reported receiving the feedback: “This b…h should be fired immediately. Why is someone this ugly allowed to teach? She better be careful I never see her in the car park. She needs to get a better fashion pick. Her clothes are hideous.”

Another was told “people who’s [sic] mother tongue is not English should not be employed as lecturers.”

Others were told “you seriously need to lose weight”, “she is really rude which is why everyone hates her”, “she should be stabbed with a pitchfork” and “if I was X, I would jump off the tallest building and kill myself if I was that dumb”.

Name-calling was rife, with students labelling teachers mentally unstable pathetic, senile, useless, a dinosaur, a dick, a Nazi and a smiling assassin.

The research confirmed that student evaluations of teaching can be a significant source of distress for academics.

The anonymity aspect leaves students free to make comments that are rude, disrespectful, abusive, toxic, misogynistic, racist, ageist, sexist, ableist and homophobic without fear of reprisal.

According to the researchers, “[E]arly-career academics, casual staff, women and minorities are disproportionately affected” by student evaluations of teaching.

These are the very groups that require more support in our workplaces, not less.

The often threatening, discriminatory and harassing tone of comments reported in the study will have many university leaders concerned that student evaluations of teaching, and the associated stress and anxiety, might compromise the health and safety of academics.

The study results will prompt the leaders to question whether inviting anonymous feedback via teaching evaluations provides misguided students with an online platform several times a year to cyberbully unsuspecting academics.

And it will force the leaders to consider whether anonymous online surveys should be retired and replaced with other measures – such as observations, peer reviews and analyses of actual student learning outcomes – to properly assess the teaching quality.

• Professor Gary Martin is chief executive officer of the Australian Institute of Management WA.