The results of a survey sent to NIU professors last semester questioning whether teacher evaluations should be published were released by the Student Association Monday.

“As we improve, redefine and revise the questions, we are finding that the teachers are increasingly agreeable to the idea (of publishing evaluations),” said David Baum, SA academic adviser.

The results of the survey showed that teachers were concerned about questions which distinguish between the evaluation of the teacher and the course.

Although the teacher might be interesting and communicate well with the students, the subject matter might be dry and boring, Baum said.

The SA also wants to look at the students’ reasons for taking the course, the grading option for the class and whether or not the course is required.

Students obviously will score differently if they are taking the class pass/fail or if they are required to take it for their major, he said.

Some of the questions were vague and need to be rewritten, he said.

Students will increase their awareness and amount of thought put into the evaluations if they are published, Baum said.

“There are too many students who do not take the evaluations very seriously because they think it’s a waste of time. If they were published, the students would be able to see the results,” he said.

Currently, the SA is working to develop a set of six to 12 questions to be used university-wide for teacher evaluations and plans to ask the University Council to mandate them for publication, Baum said.

Students will be able use the published evaluations to match the teaching techniques of a professor to their learning abilities, Baum said.

“I don’t have a lot of confidence in the current evaluations,” he said. “There is no set of mandatory core questions used throughout the whole university. There is no continuity.”

Under the proposal, individual departments will be able to use additional questions for their own purposes, but only core questions will be published.

“Basically, we (the students) are consumers paying for a product and we shouldn’t be paying for a defective product,” he said.

Baum said the SA Academic Affairs Committee plans to publish the first set of evaluations for the 1988 spring semester.

The committee is scheduled to review the questions tonight in the SA conference room. A third survey will be sent out later this semester and a final draft will be presented to the University Council later this semester.