Whats the objective of course evaluations?
There are three main objectives. Evaluations can be useful for students in terms of providing relevant information related to their course selection. Evaluations are also a useful tool — but certainly not the only tool — for evaluating a professor’s teaching performance. Last, but not least, there is a formative benefit, in that feedback from students can be discussed by the chair/director and the instructor and used to improve an instructor’s teaching. How does the existing course evaluation process work at McGill? Departments and/or faculties decide on the content of the course evaluation questionnaire. In some faculties, the faculty sets the content and all departments adhere to it. In other faculties, it’s done on a department-by-department basis. So we have varying questionnaires, which may suit the varied nature of different disciplines. However, this makes it hard for students to get comparative information across units at a glance. Then there is the question of permission. Prof
