Profs say online reviews can hurt students

EAST LANSING - "This man should be far far far away from any classroom," an anonymous student wrote about his former chemistry professor Marcos Dantus on Koofers.com.

"All in all, if I could give Dantus 0 stars I would," another former student quipped. "He should stay in a lab researching because MSU will profit more by having him stay in the lab and having a real professor teach,"

"You'll ultimately be okay," a gentler third reviewer wrote, "but it will feel like hell while you are doing it."

Negative reviews are par for the course when teaching a difficult subject like chemistry, Dantus said, but harsh reviews can still sting.

Long before he started teaching at Michigan State University, Dantus remembers asking his college friends in the 1980s which professors to avoid when registering for classes.

Today’s student don’t need to rely on word-of-mouth alone. Many visit websites like Koofers.com and RateMyProfessors.com, where they can read thousands of anonymous student-written reviews about professors like Dantus.

With rising college costs, an increasing amount of money is at stake when students choose their classes. But several local professors caution against using these reviews to make class decisions. While some professors admit to reading online reviews out of curiosity or for a laugh, they have no bearing on their employment. Ultimately, it’s students who suffer if they choose the wrong classes based on reviews they read online, professors argue.

That doesn’t stop students like Laura Bizzarri from using Koofers when picking out future classes.

“Generally, I look at reviews that give constructive feedback and say what worked and what could have been made better,” she said. “I generally disregard reviews that say 'oh this professor sucks and I got a 2.0.'”

Bizzarri used Koofers to rule out an integrated social sciences class a few weeks ago based on negative feedback the professor received. She’s never written a review of a professor for Koofers, though she said she might do so after suffering through an anatomy class this semester.

There’s no requirement for reviewers to say how often they attended class or the grades they received, leading to reviews that are often vengeful and misleading, Dantus said. They are also less representative of the student experience than MSU’s student instructional rating system, or SIRS forms, handed out to every student at the end of every semester. While MSU uses the reviews in part to rate the performance of professors, students do not have access to the results.

“Unless something goes terribly wrong, in a class of 400 students you get close to 400 SIRS forms,” Dantus said. “Whereas with informal feedback, you might get 10 students who shake your hand and compliment you (at the end of class) and you might get 30 that felt the professor didn’t live up to their standards and they express themselves online.”

Changes in student tastes and expectations of professors affect how professors are rated, said Rob LaDuca, a professor in MSU’s Lyman Briggs College.

“Back in late 1990s when I started, students wanted to be lectured at,” he said. “Now, with all the active response technology you can use in class, they expect a more interactive experience that goes beyond telling good jokes and explaining the material well.”

Those interactive tools include iClickers, which allow professors to ask questions to students during class and see in real time how well they are learning.

Cracking jokes and trying to relate to students does help with his online reviews, LaDuca said. But students should be considering more than whether a professor is charismatic when evaluating them, he added.

“I spend much more time trying to hone my craft to get better and provide a better experience to students than worrying about opinions on Internet forums,” LaDuca said.

His charismatic demeanor is mentioned by several online reviewers, including one who wrote, "AWESOME teacher! Clearly loves what he does and the lectures fly by because he is super entertaining."

Anyone looking at online reviews should also consider bias against female and foreign instructors, said Stephanie Nawyn, a sociology professor at MSU who also teaches women's studies.

She’s witnessed male students challenge the authority of female professors and personally dealt with sexual advances from others, often during one-on-one office hours.

“I actually told a colleague of mine I was so concerned (about a male student) I wanted him to know who they were in case something happened to me,” Nawyn said.

A study published earlier this year that found student evaluations often don’t measure how effective a teacher is also showed significant biases students have against female instructors.

None of the professors interviewed said they were worried about how online review might impact their employment. Nawyn went further, saying that because she was a tenure-track research professor, her job evaluations hinged more on her research output rather than student evaluations.

MSU uses SIRS forms as part of their review process, but department chairs do consider various biases against professors when conducting reviews, said Jeff Grabill, associate provost for teaching, learning and technology.

All students at MSU as well as Lansing Community College are given standardized review forms to evaluate a given class and professor. These reviews are critical to not only see where faculty can improve, but how a college can improve the classroom environment, said Margie Clark , LCC’s dean of Health and Human Services.

Often times, LCC will use student comments about a professor for professional development, she said, such as if a professor was noted for talking too quickly or not testing on class material. Other issues, such as poor hygiene, can also be addressed if students note it in their evaluations, Clark added.

Dantus said he doesn’t get angry when he reads negative reviews posted on sites like Koofers. His one-and-a-half-star status, out of five possible, is composed of 46 student reviews, many of which note the difficulty of his chemistry classes.

But Dantus said he wishes there was a way for students to raise issues before a class ends, comparing it to a customer experience at a restaurant:

“If you go to a restaurant and the soup is cold, you can wait a week and write a terrible review, but the restaurant would appreciate you letting it know soup is cold,” Dantus said. “They might even give you some warm soup on the house.”

Contact RJ Wolcott at (517) 377-1026 or rwolcott@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @wolcottr.