Commercial online instructor evaluations have gained
traction in
influencing students’ decisions on professor and course selections
at universities. RateMyProfessors.com (RMP) is the most popular of
such evaluation tools and houses a wealth of information from the
students’ viewpoint. The purpose of this study was to determine
whether RMP data could be used to analyze and inform general chemistry
instruction at a particular institution. The entire RMP database for
the general chemistry program was sampled to produce a subset of 60
random RMP entries from six instructors. Each entry was composed of
ratings in several areas and open-ended comments. The quantitative
RMP data were consistent with measures from the institutional Student
Evaluation of Instruction forms corresponding to the same instructors.
In addition, a survey investigating RMP use patterns demonstrated
that general chemistry students who contributed to RMP were not significantly
different from the rest of the cohort across seven academic and demographic
comparison criteria. The RMP qualitative information was analyzed
using an inductive approach from which seven categories emerged as
important to students’ learning environment. This analytical
model allows for categorizing students’ statements in a systematic
and meaningful manner to extract valuable supplemental information
usable for program evaluation.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.