SDSU Collegian

Issue date: 4/29/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Joni Blair Danielle Thooft, a junior Spanish education and sociology major from Milroy, Minn., fills out her class evaluations in preparation for finals week.

Each semester, students at SDSU fill out surveys to evaluate their professors and classes. As many as 38,000 to 40,000 Individual Development and Education Assessment, or IDEA, surveys are sent to Kansas at the end of each semester, said JoAnn Sckrel, director of academic assessment.

The IDEA survey uses student perspectives to evaluate faculty. Department heads collect, read and analyze the surveys to complete professional staff evaluations (PSE) annually.

"Most faculty agree not only do [the evaluations] give good feedback, but they play a role in promotion," said Kenneth Emo, assistant professor in the College of Education and Counseling.

PSEs assess three categories involving each professor: teaching, scholarship and creative activity and service. The IDEA survey falls under the teaching assessment.

In December 2005, the Board of Regents passed a Student Opinion Task Force recommendation to include student IDEA surveys as a form of faculty evaluation, according to a Sept. 25, 2008, BOR agenda. South Dakota universities began using the surveys in the spring of 2006.

Because the IDEA survey is used for all types of courses within the university system, some questions may seem irrelevant.

"I don't think they're very well fit to evaluate individual instructors," said Asha Evjen, a first-semester nursing student. "Filling out 30 questions that don't really apply is just ridiculous."

The IDEA survey system is more complex than students may think.

Once the surveys reach Kansas, the surveys of each course section are compiled into a report for the professor. The professor and the department head use this report to assess the professor's teaching.

Professors must fill out a Faculty Information Form, just as students must fill out IDEA surveys. In order for professors to have a good report, their marked objectives on the FIF have to match the students' selected objectives.

In other words, if discussion groups were a large part of the course, the professor would fill in the bubble on the FIF. If the students felt that discussion groups were essential to the course and marked their bubble accordingly, the professor would see a high ranking for that question.

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