Course evaluation response rates are slightly lower than those from spring 2007, according to Karen Helm, director of University Planning and Analysis.

While 60 percent of students completed evaluations last spring, only 57 percent responded as the fall semester came to a close. Helm still hopes to see rates increase, but said students are just too busy.

“[Students] are preparing for exams and writing papers, so when they get home they are focused on that,” Helm said. “In the old paper system, they were in the classroom when asked to fill out the form. Asking them to go home and do it adds extra work.”

Daniel Wood, a junior in political science, said exams and other work do have an impact on response rates.

“Students are so busy at the time that the evaluations are sent out, and the process seems so long and tedious,” Wood said. “They should send [evaluations] out the week before dead week to increase students’ responses.”

Wood also said the University should simplify class evaluations and make the questions more precise.

Jessica Nomina, a senior in biological sciences, said several questions on course evaluations seem redundant and irrelevant.

“The questions about teachers respecting their students are very important,” Nomina said. “But a lot of the questions are asked over and over and just don’t apply, such as the use of technology in the classroom.”

Nomina said students need to see that results are coming out of the evaluations.

“I feel that when I fill out the evaluations, especially when they are negative, nothing is ever done about them,” she said. “They never prove that professors are rewarded or reprimanded for the results. People don’t think anything is going to be done, so they don’t fill them out.”

Because professors’ results can’t be published, Nomina said a paragraph should be added at the top or bottom of the form describing the rewards or consequences that will occur based on the evaluations.

“A contact phone number or e-mail should be provided for students who are really concerned with the professor,” she said.

Both Nomina and Wood said positive incentives would motivate students to complete their evaluations.

“All teachers should give some sort of incentive,” Wood said. “One of my teachers said that if 80 percent of the class filled them out, we would be awarded two points extra credit on our final grade. That worked out really well.”

“Most students I know would do anything to get extra credit,” Nomina said.

However, Wood said penalizing students for failure to complete course evaluations should not be an option.

“It’s a class evaluation; it’s your choice and opinion-based,” he said. “To penalize a student would be unjust.”

Helm said instigating positive and negative incentives for completion still remains a topic under discussion.