One pattern to look for in Student Ratings is relationships among similar items. For example, a low rating on "Instructor's Contribution to the Course" may reflect the same course characteristics as low ratings on items such as "Ability to Give Alternate Explanations When Needed" or "Use of Examples." Rather than seeing these as three unique low items, it makes more sense to see them as reflecting a single pattern: In this case, the pattern suggests that students perceived a need for additional or different types of information to help them understand the point being taught.

The pattern of student responses across courses is also important. Clearly, the same pattern of responses in courses over time can suggest specific areas for working on teaching; also, it can be helpful to see how patterns compare in different types of courses for the same instructor: For example, does an instructor receive similar student responses in a large introductory course and in a senior seminar? How do patterns of response change over time for a course (compared with the first time the instructor taught it)?

It is also helpful to look at distribution of student responses. A course that is uniformly rated at 3.5 will have the same midpoint as one in which half the students rate at 5.0 and the other half rate at 2.0, but the experience of teaching these two courses would be very different. Similarly, a single students who rates the course much higher (or lower) than the rest of the students still needs to be considered, but this student's should be understood in the context of the overall pattern.