On most lecturer evaluation checklists, students have to state what they were expecting going into the course. For example, some evaluation checklists ask, "What level of difficulty were you expecting?" or "How much help were you expecting?" Students answer these questions by ticking one of several boxes on the answer sheet (e.g. "very high," "high," "medium," "low" and "very low").
Lecturer evaluation checklists often ask students how much experience they had in the subject prior to taking the course. This determines whether the student's assessment of course difficulty is fair or not (students with little experience may have been unprepared to take the course). Questions on student experience may include "Have you ever taken a course in the subject before?" and "Are you majoring in the subject of the course?" These are answered with "yes" or "no."
Some of the questions on a lecturer evaluation checklist deal with basic facts. Many questions deal with the professor's cancellations, tests and office hours, among other things. These include questions like "How much warning did you receive before classes were cancelled?" and "How often was the lecturer late for class?"
Some of the questions on lecturer performance are subjective in nature. These questions ask students to rate various aspects of the lecturer's performance, from clarity to subject matter knowledge. Performance rating questions may be given on a scale of 1 to 10; for example: "On a scale of 1 to 10, how clearly did the lecturer explain what was expected of you in the course?" These checklist questions are usually given alongside optional short-answer questions, such as "Explain what the lecturer could have done better."