Will Trying New Teaching Techniques Tank My Student Evaluations? No!

The TaxProf Blog discusses two studies on the above question.  The conclusion: "we present data from a survey of 431 physics instructors who had attended the Physics and Astronomy New Faculty Workshop and attempted to incorporate active learning into their introductory course. Nearly half of respondents (48%) felt that their student evaluations increased, one-third (32%) felt that their student evaluations had not been impacted, and one fifth (20%) felt that their student evaluations decreased. Thus, contrary to common fears, for these instructors the most likely result from the incorporation of active learning was an increase in student evaluations."

(Scott Fruehwald)