Now is the time of the year when lecturers will distribute in class questionnaires with cryptic names such as SET or SME… Student Evaluation of Teaching and Student Module Evaluation. Two dozens of questions to tick and lots of space on the back to write something…What are these forms and what are they for? SET and SME have been conceived at the University of Nottingham to formalize student feedback on modules and they have been standardized to make them comparable across the years and the schools. The first set of questions on the SET are the same all over the university, the second section has been set by the schools or divisions. Fine. But why were they developed? Well, there was a time where students’ opinion on what and how they learned did not count a lot, and where they were lucky if the lecturers would ask them what they thought of the modules and seminars. Teaching was not really a matter of reflection and many of the colleagues will remember the times when they, as students, had to sit through lectures where it was impossible to keep awake or, even worse, impossible to learn whatever as the lecturers did not care a d… about getting their teaching across. In Germany, where I studied, self-study was quite often to be taken literally as lectures were so bad that I at least preferred to spend my time in the library and read my own stuff. I even passed exams on topics that were not taught at all because teaching was so miserable. Sometimes lecturers would appear in class and ask us (!), the students, what they were supposed to talk about, sometimes they would simply sit down and read chapters out of the textbook, and sometimes lectures would not even come to their lectures but just leave a pile of photocopies on the desk for us to read!
However, with widening access to universities and notably with the introduction of fees these attitudes became inacceptable. Now universities have to make sure that the teaching is well done and that all students have fair chances of learning properly what they are supposed to learn. SETs and SMEs are means to make sure that a high level of quality teaching is provided. Both forms are sent back to the module convenors and the Head of Divisions. SETs are additionally processed by the Human Resources department back at the University of Nottingham. Lecturers need to provide their scores when they are applying for promotion. Aggregate SET scores above 2.5 necessitate a talk between convenor and Head of Division – in our division this has not happened ever as there have been only twice scores above 2.0 and the average score is regularly around 1.6. Lecturers write a report on their SME results in which they explain what conclusions they draw from the SMEs and what they intend to change, if changes seem necessary. These reports are published on the share drive so that students can see the reactions to their feedback. So, SETs and SMEs are not simply forms that disappear in some mysterious drawer but are taken very seriously by academic staff, the Heads of Division and the university.
Students have hence a high responsibility when filling in the forms. They are not only giving their opinion on the module they have just experienced but they are also shaping the outlook of future modules. Students have to think carefully about the answers they give. They need not only tell us what they liked or not but also what they learnt or not. This is indeed the difficult part as often we learn a lot in those modules which we like the least. When I was in my masters degree I had one very charismatic lecturer who was a brilliant speaker (and who later moved on to become Minister in his home country) but, frankly, I would not know anymore what he said and I even cannot remember the title of his lecture. On the other hand, I had this dreadful European Law lecturer who would, every session, read his lecture notes in the same monotonous and high pitched voice, and I would regularly fall asleep in this overheated and stuffy classroom… but today I do not only remember which French expressions this lecturer taught me (“en tant que tel” was his favourite) but also quite some things about European law: the Cohn-Bendit case and the Cassis judgment, the fact that European law does not exist “en tant que tel” but only as delegated national law (at that time) but that national courts can transfer cases to the European Court of Justice, that its decisions cannot be appealed and so on. It was exactly because his lecture was so tiring and hard to follow that I worked much harder on that class and, in the end, I learnt masses – something I cannot say of the other lecturer whose lectures were clearly fun but as nutritive as a KFC lunch. So, even if you resent a module you might be learning a lot in it, so let us know and think twice which box you are going to tick in those evaluation forms!
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