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Political Science

Contact Info

347 Schaeffer Hall

319-335-2348

timothy-hagle@uiowa.edu

Twitter: @ProfHagle

Spring 2025 Office Hours

Tue & Th: 4:45-6:15

Mailing Address

Dept of Political Science

341 Schaeffer Hall

20 E. Washington Street

The University of Iowa

Iowa City, Iowa 52242

Posted syllabi for Fall 2025 courses (POLI:3101 and POLI:3121)

Posted updates to 12 papers in Iowa Voting Series for 2024 election data

Posted evaluations for Fall 2024 courses (POLI:3101 and POLI:3121)

Posted updated Prelaw FAQ for UI students

Posted evaluations for Spring 2024 courses (POLI:1120 and POLI:3120).

New Book, Riding the Caucus Rollercoaster 2024, published in paperback and for Kindle devices.

New Book, Supreme Court Agenda Setting: The Warren Court, published for Kindle devices and computers with Kindle reader.

Published updated and expanded edition of Prelaw Advisor in paperback and for Kindle readers

My books

$9.99 Kindle ebook

Below are the questions I ask on my evaluation form.  I don't include here the questions dealing with my teaching assistant (when there is one).  After the options for each question are the results for that question.  Note: Unlike the ACE/SPOT forms, the order of the options varies.  This means that the "best" option is not always first or always last.  As a result, sometimes a lower number indicates "better" performance and sometimes a higher number does.  (I should also note that on the form I distribute the options are labeled a, b, c, d, and e.  I've entered them below as numbers because that's the way the computer output interprets them and it makes it easier to examine the summary statistics if I leave them in that form.)  After the results for some questions I've added a few comments (in italics) regarding that question or the results for it.

The format of this page should make it easy to compare responses across semesters.  As a result, each line in the table contains the data for one semester.  I provide the N for the submitted evaluations (which is usually lower than the number in the course due to absences) and the mean for the responses.

There are fewer evaluations for this course than my others because I had not taught it for many years prior to Fall 2009.

1. How many class periods did you miss during the semester?

1. 0-1
2. 2-4
3. 5-8
4. 9-12
5. more than 12

Obviously coming to class is a good thing.  The students responding here may be accurately indicating their attendance, but it probably overestimates that of the entire class.  My experience is that on any given day I'll have about 70% of the students present.  The students not present the day I did evaluations were probably the ones that skipped more often.  This is a once a week class, and the students had weekly quizzes, so their attendance might have been a bit better than in some other courses. There were only 13 in the class for F 2010. Two of those never came after the first class, so an N of 11 is effectively 100% participation in the evaluations--a first for any of my courses.    

2. How prepared were you for class (on average)?

1. read and outlined all materials
2. read all materials and made notes in books
3. read all materials
4. only read text before quizzes
5. relied on class notes

In this course there were weekly quizzes over a chapter in the main text and I would often make available additional material that would be the basis for discussion.  A mean close to 2 is good, but those who did better on the quizzes were probably the ones who selected 1.

3. How many hours did you spend per week preparing for class?

1. none
2. 1-3
3. 4-6
4. 7-9
5. 10 or more

I remember someone telling me that students should expect to spend about three hours preparing for a class for each hour they spend in class. For a three credit class this should mean about 10 hours per week of study time. That's probably a bit much and the time spent will depend on how difficult the material is to the individual student.  The main preparation for this course involved reading each week's chapter in anticipation for the quiz.  The in class discussions and activities didn't usually require much additional reading.  It looks like folks mostly read the week's chapter and that was it.  

4. How often did you make comments in class?

1. quite often
2. fairly often
3. sometimes
4. a few times
5. never

Unlike my other classes, this course is primarily based on a discussion format and 10% of their grade was class participation.  Thus, they had more opportunity and incentive to participate than students in my other courses.  The mean for F2009 seems about right as a handful of students were frequent contributors, a few more were regular contributors, and the rest seldom spoke (though I can't think of anyone who never spoke.

5. How often did you speak with (or email) the instructor (not the TA) about your coursework or other problems with the course?

1. never
2. 1-2 times
3. 3-4 times
4. 5-6 times
5. 7 or more times

I say that closer to 5 is better, but it's probably more like 3.  If a lot of students were coming to me with problems more than 7 times during the semester it might indicate a fundamental problem with the course.  On the other hand, if a lot of students never speak with me it might mean several things.  On the negative side it might mean that the students find me unapproachable.  Although this is undoubtedly true of a few students each semester, on the whole it does not seem to be a problem.  On the positive side, it might mean that everything about the course is sufficiently clear that the students don't need to speak with me.  Again, this is probably true of several students each semester.  (My own experience as an undergrad was that I usually did not need to speak with the instructor in a fair number of classes, particularly the larger ones.)  

6. If you spoke with the instructor, how well did he answer your questions or comments?

1. very well
2. fairly well
3. satisfactorily
4. poorly
5. very poorly

One problem in responding to student questions and concerns is that if you don't give the answer the student wants to hear it may be considered a "poor" response when it's actually very fair under the circumstances.  Still this score seems pretty good.  

7. How prepared was the instructor for class?

1. unprepared
2. somewhat prepared
3. moderately prepared
4. quite prepared
5. very prepared

As mentioned above, I had not taught this course for many years prior to Fall 2009.  Although I spent a lot of time prior to the start of the semester updating the material, there were still changes and updates I had to make during the semester (and this is true every semester).  Even so, I never come to class without being fully prepared for the daily topic.  Just the same, I often get one or two students who think I was unprepared.  Often such students don't indicate in the written portion what they thought was missing, but the student for F2009 did.

8. How well did the instructor answer questions in class?

1. very poorly
2. somewhat poorly
3. adequately
4. fairly well
5. very well

The score here is fairly consistent with those in my other courses for this question.

9. Did the instructor encourage class participation?

1. very much
2. quite a bit
3. somewhat
4. not much
5. never

As mentioned in question 4 above, the course is mainly based on class discussion and group activities.  Thus, it's almost silly for a student to respond with anything other than a 1 or 2.  One possible reason for something lower might be if a student didn't feel comfortable joining in the class discussions for some reason.  Some students were certainly less willing to jump into a discussion, but I always made a point to call on the less active participants when they expressed a willingness to contribute.

10. How interested were you in learning the course material?

1. not interested
2. somewhat interested
3. moderately interested
4. fairly interested
5. very interested

I expect the scores for this course to be lower for this question than in my prelaw courses.  Still, the F2009 score seems pretty good considering that public administration isn't usually considered a hot topic.   

11. How much did you learn in this course?

1. quite a bit
2. a lot
3. some
4. not much
5. nothing

I tell the students the first day that they have likely experienced much of what we will be reading about and discussing given their own dealings with bureaucracies.  As suggested by the F2009 score, as well as the written comments, I suspect that the low key structure of the course leads students to believe that they are learning less than they really are in this course. 

12. How many of the basic terms necessary for an understanding of the material did you learn?

1. all
2. most
3. some
4. a few
5. none

Unlike my prelaw courses, there isn't as much terminology to learn in this course.  Even so, with weekly quizzes the students had to stay on top of the bureaucratic terms and lingo for each topic.

13. Were you challenged by this course?

1. very much
2. quite a bit
3. somewhat
4. a little
5. not at all

My approach for this course is much more relaxed than that of my prelaw courses.  The idea of weekly quizzes was to not have the pressure of big tests and the class discussions and activities were intended to present the material in a more relaxed and interactive manner.  As a result, the students probably felt less challenged even though they were learning a lot.

14. How do you feel about the amount of material covered in this course?

1. way too much
2. a bit too much
3. about right
4. not enough
5. way too little

This question is structured so that the middle score is "best."  I want to challenge students in my prelaw courses a bit more than here, so having the mean a bit higher is fine.  Plus, the students did cover a lot of material.  That the material was broken up into weekly quizzes rather than two larger tests seemed to make them feel more comfortable about how much we were covering.  

15. Did the instructor present the material fairly and not give too much emphasis to one point of view or the other?

1. very fair
2. quite fair
3. somewhat fair
4. somewhat unfair
5. very unfair

Now that I have tenure I tell students my political inclinations in the first or second class period.  I also tell them that for purposes of the course, it doesn't matter whether they either agree with me or with the opinions of the authors that we read.  For this course I tend to focus more on the basic bureaucratic process and internal politics rather than policy and party politics.  Still, given that a few students for F2009 complained in the written comments about my using my DOJ experience so much it's interesting that their dissatisfaction isn't noted here as well.  

16. How well did the weekly quizzes cover the topics to be tested?

1. very well
2. fairly well
3. adequately
4. poorly
5. very poorly

Rather than tests I used weekly quizzes to gauge the students' understanding of the material. The students would provide fairly short answers to three of five questions for each quiz.  The quizzes tended to hit on broad concepts rather than details.  They also had the option of skipping or dropping two of the ten quiz scores.  That made the system pretty flexible and the F2009 students seemed to appreciate that.

17. Did the paper assignments aid in your understanding or ability to analyze concepts presented in the course?

1. very much
2. quite a bit
3. somewhat
4. a little
5. not at all

There were two paper assignments for this course.  The shorter paper was basically the write up of an interview and students had feedback on that paper by the time they did course evaluations.  (For F2009 I handed back the papers the just before the evaluations and I know a couple of the students were not happy about their paper score!)  They hadn't really started focusing on the longer paper assignment at the time of evaluations, so the mean may be a little higher because of the timing.

18. Did the class discussions help you to understand the course concepts and material?

1. very helpful
2. fairly helpful
3. somewhat helpful
4. minimally helpful
5. not at all helpful

Rather than lecture over the week's material I planned the class around discussions and group activities (next question).  Given that the broad concepts were covered on the weekly quiz, the discussions would often focus on some specific aspect of the material.  The discussions occasionally lagged, and there were certainly some students who didn't want to have to participate, but I thought they generally did a good job of highlighting aspects of the material beyond what was in the book.  Even so, I know that some students just want to be told what they have to know, so a discussion-format often doesn't sit well with them.

19. Did the group activities help you to understand the course concepts and material?

1. not at all
2. minimally helpful
3. somewhat helpful
4. fairly helpful
5. very helpful

Along with the class discussions, during the semester we had three or four group activities.  Theses were along the lines of decision making exercises where the students would consider some problem individually and then in small groups.  I would lead a class discussion of how the exercise related to the material for that week.  Most folks seemed to participate well in the small groups, even those who didn't participate much in the general discussions, so the score here seems a bit low.  I'll probably need to work to make the connection between the exercise and the material clearer.    

20. Do you think the concepts and information you learned in this course will be valuable to you in the future?

1. very helpful
2. fairly helpful
3. somewhat helpful
4. minimally helpful
5. not at all helpful

Unlike my prelaw courses, students in this courses weren't necessarily taking it because they planned to be bureaucrats!  I worked to explain why it was good to know how the process works, whether as someone who has to deal with the bureaucracy or just as a citizen.  The score for F2009 seems pretty good for this course.

21. On the whole, would you recommend this instructor to other students?

1. very strongly
2. fairly strongly
3. yes
4. yes with reservations
5. no

This is the BIG question.  This question is the general overall evaluation of my course.  Even though this course isn't as difficult as my prelaw courses the mean for F2009 is in line with that of those other courses.  There are usually several 4s each semester in my various courses.  For other courses I suspect it's often due to the difficulty of the course.  For F2009 a few students may have indicated their reservation in the written comments.  I suppose this may mean that a 4 is not all that negative of a response.  The one "no" for F2009 was mostly likely the student who wrote the most critical comments in the written section.

22. Approximately what grade do you think you will receive in this course?

1. A
2. B
3. C
4. D
5. F

I've often wondered whether a student's perception of how he or she is doing in a course affects the evaluation.  I don't try to correlate the responses between this question and the previous one, but I do look at the general trend between the two.  On the whole I think the students underestimate their performance in the course.  I realize that the average perceived grade is above a B (and for most semesters in my courses no one responds with less than a C) but I suspect that most of the students who are not doing well in the course tend not to show up on a regular basis.