Teacher Evaluations

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If student evaluations of their professors determined one’s academic grade for the quarter, almost half of the undergraduates would fail. The evaluations take only five minutes to complete online, yet, the majority of the students on campus ignore the e-mails and constant reminders to fill them out. Should we blame the students for being lazy or could each school at UC Irvine find better methods to encourage their students to complete the forms? Do the evaluations even matter in terms of firing a bad professor, or are they just there to convince students that their opinions really matter?
In the eyes of the social sciences administrators, students appear to be apathetic about the evaluations; the turn-in rates are considerably lower compared to other schools (almost 40 percent) now that most are done online. However, the few professors who make the evaluations mandatory as a part of the student’s final grade have a higher rate of completion (approximately 90 percent of students).
Fred Yu, a fourth-year social ecology major said he deletes the e-mails asking him to complete his class evaluations near the end of every quarter.
‘I’m lazy and just don’t do [evaluations]. If [the school] sends me an e-mail, I don’t do it. I don’t need to do it because I’ve already taken the course. [UCI] doesn’t emphasize the importance of the evaluations.’
Roman Gurovich, a fourth-year psychology and cognitive sciences major, evaluates the teachers whom he believes deserve to know that he enjoyed their class. ‘I only [evaluate] teachers that are good.

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