A systematic analysis of quality of teaching surveys

Abstract

All tertiary institutions in Australia use the same Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ); however, for the internal evaluation of teaching they use their own surveys. This paper performs an analysis of the internal Quality of Teaching Surveys (QTS) used in Australian universities. We classify the questions within the QTS surveys. This classification is used to explore how different universities’ surveys are similar to each other. We find that some universities use a QTS that is quite distinct from other universities. We also investigate whether there is a particular pattern to the types of questions used in the surveys. We find that there are some question types that are employed widely in a typical survey and others that are not. This analysis can be used by universities to determine how their surveys compare to their peer institutions and other institutions across Australia.

Keywords:

• Course Experience Questionnaire
• Quality of Teaching Surveys
• cluster analysis
• student evaluation surveys
• Australian tertiary institutions
• cross‐institution comparisons

Notes

1. This research was conducted under a Learning and Teaching Performance Fund grant from the University of Melbourne.

2. A unit of study is defined as a subject attracting credit points towards an award programme such as a degree.

3. The complete list of the data used in this study is available in the appendix to Davies et al. (2007).

4. ‘Compulsory’ was defined as being a systematic, institution‐wide practice required by the university and conducted on a regular, or semi‐regular basis for all teaching staff. ‘Effectively mandatory’ was defined as being necessary for promotion or advancement purposes.

5. The address for this website is http://tlu.ecom.unimelb.edu.au/evaluationcentral.

6. An overview of these groupings is available on the Australian Education Network site at www.australian-universities.com.

7. See Appendix B in Davies et al. (2007).

8. More detail as to the process by which the agglomeration cluster method operates can be found in Kaufman and Rousseeuw (1990).

9. Appendix B in Davies et al. (2007) lists the entire table of proximities.