The Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) for my course Event Marketing and Sponsorship 2013 are out and I couldn’t be happier with the results. SETs are employed at the end of each semester to measure our performance as a teacher. Students are provided with the chance to provide feedback on teaching style, material competence and a few other measures to evaluate an instructor’s achievements in teaching. At the end of the semester my students are looking forward to receiving good grades and going on holidays. I am looking forward to allocating good grades, going on holidays, and receiving my SET scores. While colleagues have argued that SET scores are highly dependent on the mood of students, how they like the instructor and their own grades. They represent students’ perception – but isn’t perception the reality of someone else, in this case the student? Admittedly, SETs are highly dependent on the perception of the few students that actually complete the evaluation. However, they still give me an overview of how I performed in the perception of my students (or at least the ones that could be bothered). SETs usually consist of a few multiple choice questions and a few open ended questions, which I like most because the open ended answers provide an actual insight what was done well and, you know, where I need to step up my game. This year, it seems like I need to do less in-group discussions and be less ‘try-hard cool’. However, and this is the great thing about SETs: I will continue my in-group discussions (only one person commented on this and I think they are beneficial) and I am just cool (there it is again: perception). Nevertheless, needless to say that I was extremely happy with my SET results and that the feedback was very motivational for next year’s course –> the power of positive feedback!
