Summary of student evaluation results from past five years
Below are the numbers for one of the “University Module” questions and one of the Faculty of Arts questions on the UBC student evaluations of teaching, from the past five years. Each year labelled below is actually the academic year starting in the Fall of that year, so “2012” refers to Fall 2012 to Spring 2013.
As the Arts One evaluations are a little unusual, I explain them here briefly. There are two Arts One evaluations for each year: one for the lectures and one for the seminars and tutorials.
- All ~100 students and five instructors meet once per week for a two-hour lecture, given by one of the instructors on the teaching team. All ~100 students in the course evaluate the lectures, and we each receive evaluation results focused just on the lectures we gave (students evaluate the lecturers individually). The students do not answer the Faculty of Arts questions for the lecture evaluations, though they do answer the University Module questions for the lecture evaluations.
- Each instructor in the Arts One teaching team has ~20 students that they meet with for twice-weekly seminars and once-weekly tutorials (four students plus their instructor, doing peer review on essays; each instructor has five of these one-hour meetings per week). Scores on the report listed as “seminars, tutorials” refer to evaluations by just the ~20 students in my seminar group of the seminars, tutorials, and grading.
Missing data from the following tables
- I was on sabbatical from 2012-2013, so there is no data labeled 2012 below.
- For Arts One in 2014, the lecture evaluations are missing because a technical problem led to the data not being collected.
- The evaluations for 2016-2017 are not ready as of April 2017; they will be released in May or June of 2017.
Questions students answered
- UMI 6 states, “Overall, the instructor was an effective teacher.” Students are asked to rate their agreement with this statement on a scale of 1-5: (1) strongly disagree, (2) disagree, (3) neutral, (4) agree, (5) strongly agree.
- Arts 6 asks, “Considering everything how would you rate this course?” Students are asked to answer on a scale of 1-5: (1) very poor, (2) poor, (3) neutral, (4) good, (5) very good.
| Philosophy | UMI 6 | Arts 6 | |||||||
| Mean | SD | Responses | Response rate | Mean | SD | Responses | Response rate | ||
| 2011 | PHIL 102 (Summer) | 4.67 | 0.6 | 18 | 40% | 4.22 | 0.8 | 18 | 40% |
| PHIL 449A | 4.64 | 0.7 | 11 | 65% | 4.60 | 0.7 | 10 | 59% | |
| 2013 | PHIL 102 | 4.46 | 0.6 | 41 | 41% | 4.26 | 0.5 | 42 | 42% |
| PHIL 449A | 5.0 | 0 | 4 | 22% | 4.50 | 1.0 | 4 | 22% | |
| 2014 | PHIL 230A | 4.04 | 1.0 | 47 | 75% | 3.96 | 1.0 | 46 | 73% |
| 2015 | PHIL 102
(Summer) |
4.50 | 0.6 | 34 | 85% | 4.3 | 0.6 | 34 | 85% |
| PHIL 102 | 4.3 | 0.6 | 80 | 65% | 4.0 | 0.7 | 80 | 65% | |
| Average scores | 4.52 | 0.6 | 56% | 4.26 | 0.8 | 55% | |||
| Arts One
|
UMI 6 | Arts 6 | |||||||
| Mean | SD | Responses | Response rate | Mean | SD | Responses | Response rate | ||
| 2010 | Lecture | 4.68 | 0.5 | 19 | 20% | ||||
| Seminar, tutorials | 4.88 | 0.3 | 16 | 84% | 4.75 | 0.4 | 16 | 84% | |
| 2011 | Lecture | 4.18 | 0.7 | 45 | 47% | ||||
| Seminar, tutorials | 4.55 | 0.5 | 11 | 65% | 4.64 | 0.5 | 11 | 65% | |
| 2013 | Lecture | 4.28 | 0.6 | 25 | 43% | ||||
| Seminar, tutorials | 4.33 | 0.8 | 6 | 38% | 4.29 | 1.1 | 7 | 44% | |
| 2014 | Lecture | Data not collected due to tech problem | |||||||
| Seminar, tutorials | 4.79 | 0.4 | 14 | 74% | 4.6 | 0.6 | 13 | 68% | |
| 2015 | Lecture | 4.5 | 0.6 | 42 | 58% | ||||
| Seminar, tutorials | 4.8 | 0.4 | 12 | 63% | 4.7 | .5 | 12 | 63% | |
| Average scores totals | 4.55 | 0.5 | 55% | 4.6 | 0.6 | 65% | |||
| Lectures average | 4.41 | 0.6 | 42% | ||||||
| Seminars, tutorials average | 4.67 | 0.5 | 65% | ||||||
Summary of results from 2010-2015
Here is an analysis of my student evaluations results from September 2010-May 2015, including my courses in Philosophy and in Arts One.
Explanatory notes
Numerical range of scores
Students are asked to give ratings from 1-5, with 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest.
Year numbering & missing data
- Each year on the report means the following: “2010” is the academic year from Fall 2010-Spring 2011; “2011” is the academic year from Fall 2011-Spring 2012, and so on. Thus, the data from Spring 2015 actually counts as part of the 2014 school year on this report, so that is why there is no “2015” listed on the report.
- I did not teach a Philosophy course in Spring 2015, so there is only one Philosophy course for the 2014 academic year. I taught a Philosophy course in Summer 2015, but that data is not included in this report (because it counts as part of the 2015 academic year, and it’s not yet in the system that generates these reports).
- However, I provide the data from my Summer 2015 Introduction to Philosophy course below, in the section where I discuss individual course results.
- There is no data for Philosophy courses from 2010; that is because I taught a Philosophy course in the Summer of 2010 rather than the Spring term, and that counts as part of the 2011 school year.
- I was on sabbatical from 2012-2013, so there is no data labeled 2012 on the report.
- For Arts One in 2014, one set of evaluations is missing (see Table 1B) because a technical problem led to the data not being collected.
Questions students answered
Sections 1-4 of the report refer to “UMI 6” and “Arts 6”; “UMI” refers to questions that are asked of all students across UBC, and “Arts” questions are asked of all students in the Faculty of Arts.
- UMI 6 states, “Overall, the instructor was an effective teacher.” Students are asked to rate their agreement with this statement on a scale of 1-5:
- (1) strongly disagree
- (2) disagree
- (3) neutral
- (4) agree
- (5) strongly agree
- Arts 6 asks, “Considering everything how would you rate this course?” Students are asked to answer on a scale of 1-5:
- (1) very poor
- (2) poor
- (3) neutral
- (4) good
- (5) very good
Table 5 refers to all UMI questions. The wording of all of those questions is given on the last page of the report.
Notes on Arts One scores
In Arts One, there are two sets of student evaluations, each by different groups of students evaluating different things.
- Evaluations of the lectures: All ~100 students and five instructors meet once per week for a two-hour lecture, given by one of the instructors on the teaching team. All ~100 students in the course evaluate the lectures, and we each receive evaluation results focused just on the lectures we gave (students evaluate the lecturers individually).
- Scores on the report listed as ARTS 001A 00A or ARTS 001B 00B are the evaluations of the lectures given to the large group.
- These evaluations are from all students in the ~100 student group, including both those who were in my seminar group (see below) and those who were not.
- The students do not answer the Arts questions for the lecture evaluations, so that is why those scores are missing on the report.
- Evaluations of the seminars and tutorials: Each instructor in the Arts One teaching team has ~20 students that they meet with for twice-weekly seminars (1.5 hours each) and once-weekly tutorials (four students plus their instructor, doing peer review on essays; each instructor has five of these one-hour meetings per week). Students in those groups of ~20 evaluate their own instructor on everything ranging from the seminar discussions to the tutorial meetings to grading the essays.
- Scores on the report listed as ARTS 001A LA4 or ARTS OO1B LB4 refer to evaluations by just the ~20 students in my seminar group of the seminars, tutorials, and grading.
Table 1B on the report linked above combines these two types of evaluations to calculate mean scores over the five years, but it may be clearer to separate these by lecture scores (evaluated by all ~100 students) and seminar/tutorials/grading scores (evaluated just by the ~20 students I met with all year).
Arts One Mean Scores for Lecture Evaluations
These are the means for just the lecture evaluations in Arts One. All ~100 students in the course evaluate the lectures by each member of the teaching team. These scores are just for my own lectures. Students don't answer the Arts questions for this evaluation, so there is no column for the "Arts 6" question, as there are with the tables below.| Year & course number | Mean score | SD | Median score | # responses | response rate (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 ARTS 001A 00A | 4.68 | 0.5 | 5.0 | 19 | 20% |
| 2011 ARTS 001A 00A | 4.18 | 0.7 | 4.0 | 45 | 47% |
| 2013 ARTS 001B 00B | 4.28 | 0.6 | 4.0 | 25 | 43% |
| 2014 ARTS 001B 00B | data not collected due to technical problems | ||||
| Average scores (unweighted) | 4.38 | 0.6 | 4.0 | total responses: 89 |
Arts One Mean Scores for Seminars, Tutorials, Grading (UMI 6)
These results are just from students in my ~20 person seminar group, evaluating the twice weekly 1.5 hour seminar discussions, the once weekly 1 hour tutorial peer review sessions, and grading of student work.| Year & course number | UMI 6 Mean | UMI 6 SD | UMI 6 Median | UMI 6 # responses | UMI 6 response rate (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 ARTS 001A LA4 | 4.88 | 0.3 | 5.0 | 16 | 84% |
| 2011 ARTS 001A LA4 | 4.55 | 0.5 | 5.0 | 11 | 65% |
| 2013 ARTS 001B LB4 | 4.33 | 0.8 | 4.5 | 6 | 38% |
| 2014 ARTS 001B LB4 | 4.79 | 0.4 | 5.0 | 14 | 74% |
| Average scores (unweighted) | 4.64 | 0.5 | 5.0 | total responses: 47 |
Arts One Mean Scores for Seminars, Tutorials, Grading (Arts 6)
These results are just from students in my ~20 person seminar group, evaluating the twice weekly 1.5 hour seminar discussions, the once weekly 1 hour tutorial peer review sessions, and grading of student work.| Year & course number | Arts 6 Mean | Arts 6 SD | Arts 6 Median | Arts 6 # responses | Arts 6 response rate (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 ARTS 001A LA4 | 4.75 | 0.4 | 5.0 | 16 | 84% |
| 2011 ARTS 001A LA4 | 4.64 | 0.5 | 5.0 | 11 | 65% |
| 2013 ARTS 001B LB4 | 4.29 | 1.1 | 5.0 | 7 | 44% |
| 2014 ARTS 001B LB4 | 4.54 | 0.7 | 5.0 | 13 | 68% |
| Average scores (unweighted) | 4.56 | 0.7 | 5.0 | total responses: 47 |