Rethinking student evaluations and the improvement of teaching: Instruments for change at the University of Queensland

ABSTRACT

The University of Queensland has recently made some wide-ranging changes to its teaching and subject evaluation system. This paper reports on a series of studies which investigated the validity of evaluating both teaching and subjects with the single instrument, TEVAL (Student Evaluation of Teaching); the importance of student approaches to learning and the implications for student ratings; and the potential influence of several ‘background˚s variables upon student evaluations of teaching. On the basis of the findings from these studies, the University has endorsed several changes in policy and practice. TEVAL has now been replaced with two new instruments, Teaching Feedback and Subject Evaluation, while academic staff are also being actively encouraged to utilise the Approaches to Studying Questionnaire. The resulting suite of instruments does much more to promote continuous instructional improvements, since it permits more analyses and discussions among students, teachers and administrators. The approach described here may be suitable for other campuses seeking similar changes.