For my programs and the programs involving my tutors, I always hand out student surveys at the end. I imagine everyone does this. Usually, it's a nice lift to the spirits, with comments like "you rock!" or something funny like "more candy!" However, there are sometimes a few negative comments, and those negative comments always seem to revolve around the bedrock, yet admittedly boring topics of time management, note-taking, and case reading. These comments tend to say something along the lines of "we already know how to manage time!" or "we already know how to take notes!" I'm sure some of the students do know how to do these things (I hope so, anyway), but plenty of them do not, and plenty of them are going to be hurt by not knowing how to do them. Consequently, these comments don't end up being particularly useful.
However, I've been wondering if the real value in these types of student comments is not in evaluating my program, but in evaluating the students making them.
Since I am a one-person shop, I try to target my efforts at the students who are most in need of my services. At the beginning of the school year, I don't have a lot of information regarding which students may struggle. For the first semester at least, I depend on professor and tutor referrals and students voluntarily coming in for help.
From my experience, the top students attend everything, take advice, and never give negative comments, even if a topic is clearly something they've already mastered and even if they are probably bored silly. A lot of times, I'll look out at one of my voluntary lectures and see a wall of top students sitting in the front row, when they're not the ones I'm worried about at all.
We just did evaluations of the Orientation program, and the few complaints were about presentations on time management, note-taking, and reading and were the exact same "we already know how to do this!" That being said, I've already had several students come in asking for help in these areas. But I've been wondering about the ones that complained. Because the evaluations are anonymous, I do not know who they are, but will they be the ones in the bottom of the class? Will I be reaching out to them in the spring after a disastrous fall?
(Alex Ruskell)
