Appearance, insults, allegations, blame and threats: an analysis of anonymous non-constructive student evaluation of teaching in Australia

Abstract

Within higher education student evaluations of teaching (SET) are used to inform evaluations of performance of courses and teachers. An anonymous online survey was constructed and implemented using Qualtrics. This study was situated within a more extensive study investigating the impact of narrative SET comments on teaching quality and the health and wellbeing of academic staff. This paper reports specifically on two open questions that were designed to elicit examples of non-constructive and offensive anonymous narrative feedback. Five themes were identified: allegations; insults; comments about appearance, attire and accent; projections and blame; and threats and punishment. These are represented in non-redacted form. Personally destructive, defamatory, abusive and hurtful comments were commonly reported. These kinds of comments may have adverse consequences for the well-being of teaching staff, could contribute to occupational stress and in some cases could be considered libellous. The high prevalence of offensive comments accessible to and shared by teachers may be a reflection of the anonymity afforded to respondents using internet surveys, resulting in de-individuation and enabling some respondents to give voice to ‘hate speech’ which has no place in evaluations of teaching.

Keywords:

• Student evaluation of teaching
• non-constructive feedback
• anonymous feedback

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This research received no grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Table 2. At your current university how widely is anonymous narrative student feedback shared?

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Richard Lakeman

Richard Lakeman is an Associate Professor at Southern Cross University and Coordinator of SCU Online Mental Health Programmes. He is a Mental Health Nurse, psychotherapist and fellow of the Australian College of Mental Health Nursing.

Marie Hutchinson is a Professor in Nursing at the Faculty of Health, Southern Cross University.

Megan Lee is a Senior Teaching Fellow in Psychology at Bond University and an Adjunct Senior Lecturer in Education at Southern Cross University.

Megan has just submitted her PhD in Psychology and is a member of the American Psychological Association (APA) and the Australasian Psychological Society (APS).

Debbie Massey’s research is in the area of patient safety, patient deterioration and teaching and learning. Deb works as an Associate Professor at Southern Cross University and as an intensive care nurse.

Dima Nasrawi is Lecturer in Nursing at Southern Cross University and a PhD student at Griffith University. She is a Cardiac Nurse and a member of the Australian Cardiac Rehabilitation Association.

Jann Fielden is a Casual Lecturer and Academic Integrity Officer at Southern Cross University.