ARE FIRST IMPRESSIONS LASTING? The Eclectic Econoclast (making a slight name change to avoid confusion with a consultant trading as Econoclast) discovers something about course evaluations.

If students can, in five seconds(!!!), provide instructor evaluations that are the same as the ones we get from students who have actually been in the course for an entire semester, there is a very good chance that the standard evaluations conducted near the end of each term are not measuring much more than presentability, performance, and atmosphere.

Does that mean course evaluations are a waste of time?

My skepticism does not, however, mean I would favour abolishing student evaluations of instructors. As I said at the outset, evaluations are probably important for measuring consumer satisfaction with the product universities provide.

But the consumers are not the students. Students participate in a process called learning. The ability to make connections and not be fooled makes them somewhat more valuable to employers (to get a good job, get a good education and all that.) Are people sufficiently intuitive to see that potential in five seconds?