“It’s only one negative comment”: women instructors’ perceptions of (un)helpful support messages following hurtful course evaluations

ABSTRACT

Course evaluations can be an effective tool for students to appraise a course and instructor; however, they can also be a communicative space for students to write comments instructors perceive as hurtful, need to make sense of and reconcile with their instructional practice. Instructors turn to others to help make sense of and cope with comments. This study applies a message-centered approach to consider what social support is in a specific context, types and functions of social support in that situation, and effects of that support based on unique cultural and institutional macrostructures of the communication event. The study's purpose was to identify support providers and messages women instructors receive when coping with hurtful comments. Collegiate women instructors (N = 81) received support from friends, family, colleagues, and administrators, including traditional forms (informational, network, emotion, esteem) as well as social undermining messages such as minimization and negative appraisal. Participants found network, situational appraisal, and esteem to be the most helpful types of support, and minimization, teaching recommendations, and negative appraisal to be the least helpful. Findings offer implications for women instructors seeking support for hurtful course evaluation comments and recommendations for how to offer support to those instructors.

KEYWORDS:

• Course evaluations
• hurtful messages
• social undermining
• social support
• women in higher education

ORCID

Leah E. LeFebvre http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7307-2895

Heather J. Carmack http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5520-3951

Joshua R. Pederson http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9424-5372

Notes

1 The recruitment did not explicitly target any particular demographics; however, participants primary identified as homogeneous sample of women (n = 81; 91%). Based on the recommendations of our reviewers, we leaned into these women’s experiences to illuminate their voices and gendered experiences. We acknowledge and appreciate the men who participated in our study and their gendered complexities; however, their experiences will not be the focus.

2 The majority (91.1%) of instructors had their most hurtful comments come in a face-to-face, or in-person course, followed by hybrid (5.1%), and online (3.8%) courses. As for the course evaluations, students primarily completed them online (67.9%) or in-person (29.6%). A few instructors indicated students had both options—online and in-person (2.5%).

3 Although most of our participants were women, there is no evidence that US college teaching, in general, is a women-dominated occupation. A 2016 report from the National Center for Education Statistics (2016) reported that women held 48.9% of tenure-track positions; 51.5% of Assistant Professor positions, 44.9% of Associate Professor positions, and 32.4% Professor positions. Women also make up 57% of instructor positions. Within the two disciplinary fields of our participants, Psychology departments are made up of 45–50% women faculty (APA, 2017, p. 49), but women psychology faculty are funneled more toward teaching than research positions; in Communication, 51–52% of faculty are women (White, Chu, & Czujko, 2014, p. 8).

4 Prior research has indicated that women tend to participate in studies more than men for a number of reasons, including personal connection to a topic and feminine values of collectivism and social participation (Curtin, Presser, & Singer, 2000; Singer, van Hoewyk, & Maher, 2000; Smith, 2008).

5 We did not provide definitions for the terms—“negative” and “hurtful.” We relied on shared meaning systems of the terms and allowed room for idiosyncratic interpretations of such terms to allow openness for individual experiences. A narrow definition of what counts as a hurtful messages ultimately restricts the possibility for breadth, depth, and richness of human experiences. Therefore, it was an intentional decision to not define these terms for participants.

6 We did not operationalize these for participants—they were free to identify any individual or group of people. In terms of differentiating the categories, we utilized the labels offered by participants and often did not contain conceptualize or definitional information. We offer clarity as to differences between mentors and peers, colleagues, and coworkers; although, note that participants did not provide this distinction only the label. Mentors are experienced individuals who can offer advice (often from evaluated experience by the individual), but again, may or may not work at the same university as the participant. We combined peers, colleagues, and coworkers into a singular category because they all generally speak to individuals at the same level as the participant (such as a fellow junior faculty member), but they may or may not work at the same university or in the same department (such as a writing partner at another university or a colleague in a different college).

7 Participants (73.6%) indicated they utilized more than one support provider.

8 Participants (54.1%) indicated they utilized more than one type of support.

9 Informational and network support were also identified as most helpful types of support. These two types of support are the only support types to be in both the most helpful and the least helpful categories.