Using student evaluations to improve individual and department teaching qualities

Abstract

Student evaluations can be seen as an opportunity for students to vent their views on the quality of teaching that they receive, and sometimes instructors trivialise the importance of this opportunity for dialogue with students and colleagues and reflection on teaching practice. This paper takes student evaluations of teaching quality seriously and proposes a new theoretical framework that enables greater utilisation of such information. We illustrate how information from evaluations can be used to identify areas where the whole department has strengths and weaknesses and where individual instructors perform relative to their own department. This information can be used to identify individuals with specific areas of expertise and shape best practice within departments, across departments and/or across institutions. It can also be used to highlight individuals who may require further professional development and reveal areas of mediocrity that are at risk of intervention from a higher level. Finally, it suggests ways to implement shared best practice in order to improve department teaching quality assessment results and individual teaching performance.

Keywords:

• student evaluations
• buddy schemes
• centres of teaching excellence

Notes

1. Within the context of this paper the terms instructor, lecturer and teacher will be used interchangeably. There is no intended difference between methods or philosophy used between the three terms.

2. See Bond and Paterson (2005); Forgasz and Leder (2006); Glassick, Huber, and Maeroff (1997); Harris, Thiele, and Currie (1998); Jones, Galvin, and Woodhouse (1999); Kearns and Gardiner (2007); Kirp (2003); Knight (2002b); Macfarlane (2005); Malcolm and Tarling (2007); Sparkes (2007); Thompson, Constantineau, and Fallis (2010).

3. See Hamermesh and Parker (2005); Isely and Singh (2005); Johnson (2003); Langbein(2008); McPherson (2006); Nelson and Lynch (1984); Rojstaczer and Healy (2012); Sabot and Wakeman-Linn (1991).

4. The policies referred to here are the University of Auckland Student Evaluation of Courses and Teaching Policy, 2008 and Auckland University of Technology’s Academic Promotions and Progression Procedures – Lecturers. Note that the University of Auckland introduced a new policy in January 2014 that replaced the one applicable here (University of Auckland 2014).

5. We recommend that a good rule of thumb is to group evaluations in such a way that a minimum of six evaluations (Hogan 1973) of each lecturer and module be included in any aggregate measure. Large departments could then split according to the level of the module while smaller departments would tend to keep them together.

6. If comparisons can be made between faculties or even between institutions that use the same key questions then a wider and more objective measure could be developed instead of this relative measure.

7. Richardson (2005) provides a useful guide to the practicality of using evaluation instruments for obtaining student feedback while Williams and Cappuccini‐Ansfield (2007) consider whether surveys are fit for purpose.

8. There could equally be a case made for individuals who are excelling at a particular trait to also engage in continuing professional development in that area in order for them to provide better quality feedback to a department. For instance, Lecturer X may be performing relatively well at Area 6 but they may not know why this is the case.