BYU NewsNet - RateMyProfessors gets mixed reviews

BY NATALIE CROFTS

Jameson Fox isn’t sure how much he should trust ratemyprofessors.com.

“I’ve had bad teachers turn out to be good and good teachers turn out to be not so great,” said Fox, a senior from Seattle, majoring in international relations. “I had a professor that a lot of people complained about, but I could tell he really enjoyed the subject and I ended up really liking his class.”

Students deciding which classes to take often consult sites like ratemyprofessors.com and find it helpful, even with mixed reviews of how accurate the information is.

RMP has over 6.8 million ratings for more than 1 million professors.

“It definitely influences my opinion,” said Catherine Taggart, a sophomore from Cody, Wyo. “A lot of times you can weed out the professors who are extreme.”

Stephen Clawson, a freshman from Provo, studying pre-construction management, said he didn’t know about RMP his first semester, but that with its help classes are going much smoother.

“Now I am taking two honors classes just because of the professors and it’s going really well,” Clawson said. “[My] teachers first semester were OK, but when I found out about Rate My Professors I looked up who I had and found that I had some of the hardest teachers.”

However, he warned that sometimes students have to be careful with which ratings to trust.

“I think that it’s pretty accurate overall, but if you take each rating individually you have to be careful,” Clawson said.

Randy Bott, a professor of religion, was rated the No. 1 teacher in the country by RMP for 2008. Despite his high ratings, Bott still has reservations about how accurate it is.

“I wish I believed that everyone who takes the time to report is doing it objectively, but I’m not sure that is true,” Bott said. “I think kids would do well if after writing a critique they would think about if someone leveled the same criticism against them would they feel good about it. Some criticism is legitimate, but some is very malicious.”

Bott said students will find in teachers what they look for.

“If you look for the good you will find good, but if you look for faults you will find it even when it isn’t really even there,” Bott said.

Shane Reese, a professor of statistics, said he doesn’t believe RMP accurately reflects classes, in part because few students post ratings and those who do are not required to have taken a class from the professor.

“There’s a tremendous amount of usage, but one thing that is telling is that I taught a class of 800 people and only 22 or 23 people rated me,” Reese said. “That’s not a real high response rate.”

Ratings on the site are submitted by students who choose to volunteer.

“I think the ones who take the initiative to leave comments are at extreme ends of the spectrum,” said Barry Bridges, a sophomore from Eagle River, Ala., majoring in civil engineering. “They either enjoyed them the most or disliked them the most. The people in the middle don’t really care enough to comment.”

Some students said they think ratings can be connected to the nature of the subject being taught in addition to how well a professor teaches.

“When I was a physics TA most of the students who came in didn’t like the professor if they didn’t like the subject,” said Peter Ashworth, a sophomore from Boise, Idaho, majoring in mechanical engineering. “But, at the same time, if a professor is not real great at explaining a difficult subject a lot of times it makes them a not easily likeable teacher.”

BYU recently started releasing information from student evaluations online, offering an average score for categories such as amount learned and interest in student learning.

Students are able to search for ratings by either teacher name or course. However, unlike RMP, students aren’t able to see the comments of students who took the class.

“Online you can view a subset of questions, but its success depends on whether students view it as sufficient or not,” Reese said. “The university wants students to use it more, and making sure that students have access to enough information will be a key determinant of its success.”

Reese encouraged students to participate in student evaluations.

“One thing that is hugely important is that in general faculty are trying to improve their teaching and if students will just take the time to make meaningful comments most will try to make improvements,” he said. “Students can have a role in shaping the teaching that is going on.”

Some students said they think information from BYU would be more reliable. A higher number of students submit ratings to the school, in part because of encouragement from teachers.

Bridges suggested that more could be done to promote the school’s online student evaluations.

“I’ve rated professors but I’ve never used it,” said Bridges. “I think that if the BYU information was more accessible, with an easy link, more people would probably use them.”

Students offered alternatives to RMP like talking to friends.

“One thing I wish that I had done more was talk to friends I trust; then you can tell by their personality whether or not it will be a good class for you,” said Fox.

Other suggestions included meeting the professor beforehand to get a feel for their teaching style and attending multiple classes the first couple of weeks to see what fits best.

Bott said there is more to the quality of a class than ratings.

“Everyone could say I was the most successful person in the world, but if the Spirit wasn’t there it wouldn’t be successful,” Bott said. “That’s what really makes the difference.”