Can you increase teacher engagement with evaluation simply by improving the evaluation system?

Abstract

We know various factors can influence how teaching staff engage with student evaluation, such as institutional policies or staff beliefs. However, little research has investigated the influence of the technical processes of an evaluation system. In this article, we present a case study of the effects of changing the technical system for administering student evaluations at one New Zealand university. We develop a socio-technical model of the institutional evaluation system, and use this model to examine whether introducing an online system for ordering student feedback questionnaires and reducing processing time influenced academic staff engagement with evaluation. Survey responses, interview comments and data about ordering trends suggest the change did increase staff engagement by: (1) improving staff perceptions of evaluation and (2) increasing engaged behaviour, such as voluntarily ordering more evaluations. The outcomes of this study imply that the ‘practical implementation’ of an evaluation system is an important factor in influencing engagement with evaluation. We conclude that we can increase teacher engagement with evaluation simply by improving the ‘practical implementation’ of the evaluation system.

Keywords:

• student evaluation
• teacher perceptions
• engagement
• socio-technical approach

Acknowledgements

This study would not have been possible without the support and feedback of Jo Kennedy, Allen Goodchild, Julie Samson, Rob Wass and Ben Daniel.