Indiana University Teaching Handbook

Preparing to Teach

Teacher–Course Evaluations by Students

Instructors have several options available to collect feedback from their students.

Multi-Op from the IUB Evaluation Services and Testing (BEST) is the most commonly used evaluation at IU-Bloomington. BEST maintains a bank of questions from which instructors and departments may select to design their own evaluations. Or you can use their standard “Form C.” On request, Campus Instructional Consulting staff will meet with you to help interpret the feedback. Multi-Op system can be administered on paper scan sheets or via the campus computer network. Contact BEST, Franklin M002, 855-1595 for further information. We strongly urge departments to use the Multi-Op system because:
1. The Multi-Op has been used for over 20 years and during that time it has been tested and refined to make it more understandable by the students and to make sure the questions test for the concerns they were intended to address.
2. It compares instructors with norms composed of other instructors at both the campus and group levels (Journalism, Phys Sci/Math, Humanities, Soc. Sci., Natural Sci., Music, SPEA, Business, Educ., HPER, Med/Nursing, Law, & Optometry).
3. It includes questions that address global concerns as well as instructor characteristics, course elements, student development, special class organizations, and items that are curriculum specific, instructor written, and open-ended.
4. It includes instructions on how to administer the evaluation in a consistent manner.
5. The computerized summaries make the documentation of results easier when developing student evaluation summaries for teaching portfolios and tenure dossiers.
Departmental forms. Some departments have developed their own questionnaire and ask their instructors to use this form in order to facilitate comparisons. Check with your department to see if there is one.
Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) is available through Campus Instructional Consulting. It is a formative teaching diagnostic, designed to provide instructors with ideas for changes they might make in their teaching. The questionnaire is administered by Campus Instructional Consulting staff and takes about 15 minutes of class time. After the quantitative data is tabulated and the written comments are typed, a consultant will meet with you to present and interpret the feedback. Call their office at 855-9023 for further information.