Speaker evaluations 1

[MintJulep]

At most professional society meetings where formal papers are presented, members of the audience are expected to turn-in evaluations of the speaker and presentation.

I have always given my honest opinion, which is not always good.

Several people have suggested that it is simply "polite" to give good marks regardless of the quality. My feeling is that without honest evaluation, the speaker is robbed of an opportunity for self-improvement.

What do you do, and why?

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

I don't attend "professional society meetings", but have attended presentations where the attendees opinions were requested. Like you I gave, and will continue to give, my honest opinions. I believe that while most professional presenters would love to receive very complimentary comments, they also welcome true critiques of their presentation style and material ... providing of course that it is constructive criticism and not just, "It sucked" type comments.

 

[JStephen]

I'd go for the honest approach, stated as politely and as positively as possible. State the good with the bad, not just the bad. Try to give suggestions for improvement rather than just criticism.

 

[JAE]

I serve on a structural engineering committee in my city where we put on an annual structural conference each year. We usually have about 8 speakers through the one-day event.

The evaluation forms are all read through by the whole committee the night after the event and we do appreciate the "grades" and any comments provided. Generally, we usually have a pretty good idea what to expect, although sometimes there are surprises. But it does help us get better at providing good quality programs each year so they do help us and, in turn, help the engineers who attend.

 

[MikeHalloran]

Obeying my various genetic flaws, I have always tended to be completely honest. In recent decades, I have tried to also be polite, or at least humorous.

If your "several people" include any "HR weenies" (I would use a stronger pejorative in person), then any response short of "Beautiful prose, Perfect Delivery, and Walks on Water Too", could be a career decision for you.




Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[MedicineEng]

If persons ask my oppinion, I will tell them the more polite way that I can. But I will never say :"I loved it" when in fact it sucked. In our trainings, there is a form where we grade the trainingan the speaker in 5/6 items. 95% of the persons just grade all the items as :"Good". Frequently I grade the items from "Excellent" to "Reasonable".
Now,there are ways and ways to say that a person sucked. One way (the wrong one IMHO)is:"You sucked". A more productive approach is:"I would improve this and that".

 

[tygerdawg]

I used to give a lot of presentations of different types at meeting & shows. My motivation was to polish speaking & presentation skills, show the world what a brilliant engineer I was through my work results, be a little bit entertaining, and try to land some consulting gigs. I welcomed the comments. They ranged from "well done & informative" praise to "it sucked" responses. It was painful and required me to develop a thick skin, but I scanned all the comments looking for the mature individuals that offered constructive criticism of my shortcomings in a diplomatic & polite way.

That's now how I make my own comments.

TygerDawg

 

[GregLocock]

fair enough, so what good is a rating on a 1-5 scale?

Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[sms]

It isn't. I do a lot of training courses and I do not hand out forms with 1-5 ratings on them for my course evaluations. That provides little of value. At the end of my classes I hand everyone a blank sheet of paper and ask them to make at least one comment, preferably more, good or bad, regarding the course. I have found this approach to be more valuable in helping me fix the issues with my presentation or my materials.

-The future's so bright I gotta wear shades!

 

[cousink]

A technical presentation is certainly a different animal than stand-up comedy. If it were an evaluation of a technical presentation, I would provide feedback to the speaker to help him (her) help me better understand the information, given the topic and his audience. Of course, if additional (or correct) facts were required, it could be stated.

For example, a technical presentation about building technology to the American Society of Civil Engineers must have a general organization that involves people from varying backgrounds, whereas the same technical presentation to structural steel skyscraper engineers might with the same generalities alienate a larger segment of the audience.

In my evaluation of a technical presentation, I would tend not to judge the manner of his speech and focus more on the organization and content of his presentation. If I would have a problem with any speaker issue that prevented me from understanding anything he said, I would interrupt him during the presentation or simply make a short, sharp suggestion on the evaluation sheet, "Try Toastmasters!"

 

[ozmosis]

Technical training/presentations I and a few of my colleauges give will always end with an appraisal, and for a few years we used to have the 1-5 scale sort of thing. After a while of reading the 95%'ers, we thought that this is not really the point of an appraisal. So now we simply have one heading with lots of room underneath:
Where can we improve? Honesty means it gets better next time!
................................................................................................................
The difference is quite enlightening and, I think, improved what we do.

 

[jmw]

I just gave a presentation at a conference at which the feedback forms were vigorously circulated but as usual, only a small percentage of attendees responded. None the less, the resulst were carefully analysed and reported by the conference organiser and the results published to the speakers.

The results were carefully anonymous and comments such as "it sucked" were filtered out.
Properly reviewed for content and presentation, these are a valuable feedback.

My own presentation came in mid range for which I was unbelievably greatful. At the same time I wondered whether they would have filtered out my own comments on my own presentation? I'd left that part of the form blank but now I wonder if I should have given myself top marks. Given the manner in which the rsults were processed I am quite sure I could have put what I liked for my own presentation and they would have been filtered.
Incidentally, I had to agree pretty much with the results for all speakers.

One thing, having done a customer services training course, the one thing instilled in us was to never present a grading system that presents options for "neither agree nor disagree" but which force you to elect either a positive or a negative appraisal. That way you force meaningful instead of polite replies.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[KENAT]

I say be honest.

Try and keep it polite & constructive but don't lie.

Even most 1-5 or similar score cards I've seen have a section for comments.

I always try to fill out the forms at conferences etc, seems only fair (especially for any volunteers etc) as they've made the effort to get up there.

At Universtiy they had to grade lecturers. It was meant to be anonymous. Our computing lecturer wasn't a great teacher, English was his second language and I think he anticipated bad scores. He asked us to fill in one form anonymously and one form with our name on, I think he even said he expected the ones with names on to have higher scores. I filled out both exactly same and still passed the course.

 

[Ashereng]

How about this. Score everything down the middle. In the notes section, you give ONE constructive suggestion.

This way, you are both polite, honest and constructive.

What do you all think?

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[casseopeia]

Speaker evaluations from the audience members are probably the biggest reason I don’t like to do any more public speaking. Opinions seemed to be all over the map, with some of them completely unrelated to the topic or issues under my direct control. I found watching a videotape of myself along with others who do public speaking and a public-speaking instructor for feedback much more helpful and constructive.

A critique technique that I have learned is to start with at least one good remark, “ your suit was a perfect choice or you have a strong voice and good diction.” This sets the listener at ease and lets them hear the constructive criticism. Also, change your statements of judgement to curiosity, “ I wonder if you had to look at your paper so much because you weren’t given enough time to prepare” instead of saying “you looked down too much and I couldn’t hear you.”

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

 

[KENAT]

If someone really sucked or was really good giving them mediocre scores wouldn't seem honest to me.

 

[Ashereng]

True.

One man's really sucked could also be another man's really good.

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[zdas04]

I think the worst I ever got was a new-hire oil & gas facilities engineer who felt a class titled "Fundamentals of Pipeline Construction and Operation" had "nothing to do with my job and was a major waste of my time". I forwarded that evaluation to her supervisor and I think she's selling cars down on Main Street now (the two facts are not necessarily connected).

I'd rather see "the idiot didn't know what the heck he was talking about when he said ____" than a numeric evaluation that is all 5's.

David