On the market with mixed student evaluations?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

I'm about to go on the job market and my student evaluations are not the best. I mostly have averages from 3.5-4 out of 5 (at my university 4.2 is the overall average). I don't want to lie or obscure this fact, I want to own up to it and discuss how I plan to do better in future. But I don't know if that is a good strategy.

I'd love to hear from anyone who has been in this position, and how they handled it. Or if you have hiring committee experience, how you would think about someone who has somewhat below average scores discussing that fact.

A couple of notes:

1. I know that student evaluations are not a good indicator of student learning. And student learning is the most important thing.
2. I suspect my student evaluations aren't great mostly for personality reasons and because of my own social anxiety getting in the way of engaging the students well.
3. However, there are plenty of people who are both great teachers and get great student evaluations, and I believe we should all aspire to that. Students can learn from and like you.
4. I believe that given some time and without the direct stress of a thesis I will be able to work on the issues that I think are affecting my student evaluations and do better, while also teaching more effectively. But I'm not there yet.
5. This wouldn't be an issue for someone with an outstanding publishing record. But my publishing record is good (2 paper in top 15 journals) but not outstanding.

This is an excellent query, as I expect there are quite a few job-candidates in a similar situation. On the one hand, my sense is that many people on search committees take student evaluations with a grain of salt, as most of us know the mixed (at best) empirical findings about them. On the other, given that there will probably be other candidates with stronger evaluations, mixed evaluations are presumably a prima facie disadvantage. So, what to do?

Personally, I'm not entirely sure whether it is good for a candidate to mention that their evaluations are mixed and try to explain the fact. Maybe that could work - I'm just not sure. I guess I'm inclined to think that the best path forward is to have an otherwise stellar teaching portfolio: a strong and thoughtful teaching statement, along with well-crafted syllabi, assignment examples, and so on. Finally, I think it can matter what the qualitative contents of one's student evals (i.e. student comments) look like. There's a big difference, I think, between comments that indicate that an instructor is challenging (which many search committees may look favorably upon, but which can drag down student eval numbers), and comments that indicate that the instructor struggles to explain content clearly (which may be a cause for legitimate concern). 

But these are just my thoughts. Here are a couple of follow-up comments that readers submitted to the OP's initial query:

I would not explicitly draw attention to your evaluations. The committee will see them. Let them make of them what they will. If you talk about them, then they will, and with the state of the market, the safe thing will be to set your file aside. - by 'careful'

You should expect the lowest teaching scores of your career when you are newest at the job. Even for experienced teachers, the first term teaching a course tends to get lower evals than in future years. So cut yourself some slack. Hiring departments know this. Plus, they expect new hires to grow as teachers over time. I've often heard it said that for tenure departments are looking for "good enough" teaching plus a trajectory of steady improvement, though this does depend on the specific department/university. Search committees know that student evaluations of teaching are a rough indication at best. It is only one part of judging a candidate's promise as a teacher. In that regard, your teaching statement (sometimes called a teaching philosophy, though I hate that term) is an important part of your application. Use it to describe what is good about you as a teacher by explaining things you do in the classroom. Make your other teaching materials (sample syllabi, etc.) as good as they can reasonably be without being overly long or taking you unreasonable time to prepare. Get feedback on these items from several professors before you submit them. In your cover letter or teaching statement, where you mention your scores, it helps to use any words that are associated with the score range. For example, you might be able to say "my teaching evaluation scores range from good (3.5/5) to very good (4.0/5)." (Adjust for your local instrument.) If you have access to more than just the data for overall departmental average, you could (if it is favorable to you) compare your scores to scores for the same class with different instructors over a five year run, or to scores for other graduate instructors. Your grad director or placement officer might be able to help with those things. To supplement your student evals, ask a professor you trust (not your supervisor, maybe not even someone in your area) to visit a class and give you honest feedback. After discussing with you, if they can make comments that are mostly positive, ask them for a teaching letter to include in your application file. As with student comments, if there is something the teaching letter writer notes or recommends, in your teaching statement briefly explain how you plan to improve based on that feedback. The fact that you show you are thinking about how to improve will look good. In all this, it is important not to come off as defensive or as acknowledging a significant lack. Don't lie, but don't make yourself look bad. Pitch it as getting to the next level, not as making up for a deficiency. It is a known thing that some classes (e.g., ONLINE CLASSES, mandatory general education classes, critical thinking and logic classes, very large courses, gateway courses) have systematically lower scores across the nation. If you teach one of those, take comfort. If you are comparing your pandemic online classes against a department average that includes face-to-face courses from years gone by, well, don't. BTW, don't count on having more time to work on your teaching once you are finished your thesis. If anything, you will probably be more busy in your first years of a tenure track position. Incremental, intentional progress is the key. Take advantage of any faculty development opportunities that are available in your current or future academic homes. - by William Vanderburgh

What does everyone else think? It would be especially good, obviously, to hear from people on search committees!

Comments

[Tim]

I am doubtful its a good ideas to draw attention to the scores. But if you are going to draw attention to the scores, I might try to show how the high scores compliment the low scores. For instance, suppose a question like 'the readings are too hard' is not good, but a question like 'the teacher can tell when I don't understand' is good. You could justify the scores by saying something like, 'As my evals indicate, I assign readings that are challenging that many students struggle with. But I also am there to assist them through the readings, identifying the places where they struggle.'

Here is an alternative strategy I have seen recently. Instead of scanning all of the particular evaluations, one produces a much shorter document summarizing them. In that document, you might identify a few issues you routinely do well on. You can just reproduce those for several classes, and omit the rest. Then add a note saying that the full evaluations are available upon request.

[It's not that bad.]

I'm surprised no one has said this but, your numbers are not very bad. If you were clocking in around 2.5-3, that would be something that would jump out and that you *might* want to preemptively address.

But 3.5-4 is, as you say, just below the average for your school. I would neither mention it in a cover letter nor fret about it as you subit your applications.

[Prof L]

If you can argue that there is an upward trajectory in your scores, this is a good thing to do.

I would refer to those scores as “solid” with room for improvement and then indicate any plans you have for improving your teaching. Point to strengths in the comments. Summarize constructive (negative) feedback from students and say how you plan to address it.

Maybe there are people out there who got 4.8s their first semester teaching, but those people are the exception. Most excellent teachers I know are people who like their students and are thoughtful about improving their teaching. This takes time, experience, and humility.

No one reading an application will be sympathetic to the argument that you will have more time to work on your teaching when you are not a graduate student … but no one expects perfection out of the gate. I don’t think those scores are disqualifying—of course stronger scores are better, but I think scores below three are really the ones that make you think something is off or this is going to be a serious problem.