Career Development Using Student Evaluations (25 links)

Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Student Evaluation of Faculty: Galloping Polls in the 21st Century (ERIC Digest). Haskell, RE. Argues that because student evaluations of faculty are used for faculty salary, promotion, and tenure decisions, they create pressure to comply with student classroom demands regarding teaching style, grading and other expectations, all of which can or do infringe on academic freedom.

Effective University Teaching: Reflecting On and Responding to your Course Evaluations. Stanford University - Center for Teaching and Learning. Provide practical suggestions to help faculty respond to specific areas of teaching highlighted by student course evaluations. and derived broadly from principles of effective learning drawn from psychology, education, observation and practice. Covers Organization and Clarity; Engaging and Challenging Students; Interacting With Students; and Course Organization, Content, and Evaluation.

Evaluating Teaching Effectiveness. Forsyth, D.R.. Chapter 8 in the author's text The Professor's Guide to Teaching: Psychological Principles and Practices (Chicago: APA, 2003). Applies a strong research-based approach to discuss issues related to student evaluations of teaching and and recommend ways to improve faculty evaluation processes.

How professors can use student course ratings to improve teaching and to prepare for tenure/promotion/merit decisions. McGill University - Centre for University Teaching and Learning. Based on over 30 years of research, recommends several practical ways to use student course ratings to improve teaching and to prepare for tenure/promotion/merit decisions.

How Student Evaluations Can Help You Most. Carnegie Mellon University - Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence. Provides several quick tips designed to help faculty get maximum benefit from students feedback early in a course.

How to Improve Your Teaching Evaluation Scores Without Improving Your Teaching!. Trout, P. Provides a tongue-in-cheek but also scholarly critique of the problems with student evaluations of teaching and how best to manipulate them.

IDEA Papers - Student Ratings of Teaching: Recommendations for Use (No. 22). Kansas State University. Provided literature-based recommendations on how best to use student ratings of teaching. Areas addressed include general considerations, the overall system, rating forms themselves, administration and interpretation.

IDEA Papers - Student Ratings of Teaching: The Research Revisited (No. 32). Kansas State University. Summarizes the conclusions of the major reviews of the student rating literature from 1971 to 1995. Concludes that studing ratings tend to be reliable, valid and relatively free from bias.

Improving Your Teaching with Feedback. Florida State University. Chapter 14 in Instruction at FSU: A Guide to Teaching & Learning Practices. Provides an overview of the methods instructors can use to get feedback on their teaching: student feedback, self-evaluation, peer observation, viewing a videotape of one's teaching, and consultation with a faculty colleague. Suggests that the more information instructors can gather on their teaching the more effective they will be in organizing, planning and implementing their courses.

Let Me Edutain You. Altschuler, GC. A lighthearted but though-provoking discussion on student evaluation of teaching and the state of higher education excerpted from the New York Times, Education Life Supplement Section, April 4, 1999.

Leveraging Student Feedback to Improve Teaching in Web-based Courses. Hazari, S & Schno, D. Explores the cognitive aspects of learning and the use of technology to facilitate student feedback and improve Web-based teaching and learning.

Return to Academic Standards: Challenge the Student Evaluation of Teaching Effectiveness. Emery, C, Kramer, T & Tian, R. A scholarly criticism of student evaluations of faculty performance and teaching effectiveness that concludes these tools are a controversial approach to education quality control. The reasons for the controversy are not only in the student evaluations themselves, but also the way they are used.

Sources of Error in Student Evaluation of Teaching. Grussing, P.G.. Identifies eight sources of rating error in the Student Evaluation of Teaching, together with examples of error-reducing approaches. The importance of reducing errors in processes which contribute to periodic faculty evaluations and promotion and tenure process is stressed. (Am J Pharm Educ, 58, 316-318, 1994).

Student Evaluation of Teacher Performance (ERIC Digest). Coburn, L. Offers a rationale for the use of student ratings, describes the research findings concerning the validity and reliability of such ratings, and identifies the major issues involved in designing and administering rating forms and reporting their results.

Student Evaluation of Teachers: Professional Practice or Punitive Policy?. Simmons, TL. Reviews the evidence student evaluation of faculty and the variables effecting students' opinions. Cncludes that a better paradigm is needed, i.e., one which is primarily designed to inform teachers rather than judge them. From JALT Testing & Evaluation SIG Newsletter, 1(1), Oct. 1996, p. 12 - 16.

Student Evaluation of Teaching: A Methodological Critique of Conventional Practices. Sproule, R. Outline arguments against the exclusive use of student evaluations in the determining teaching effectiveness and seeks to answer why university administrators continue to use these data for personnel decisions.

Student Evaluations of College Instructors: An Overview. Gordon, PA. Reviews the literature on student evaluations of college instructors. Examines reasons for and appropriate uses of student ratings, as well as sources of validity and bias. Recommends improvements to satisfy faculty and students and to meet the needs of the information age.

Student Evaluations: The Ratings Game. Adams, JV. Describes the widespread misuse of student evaluations. Recommends that student evaluations should be used for improvement of instructor's teaching. Details over a dozen variables of questionable validity related to high student evaluations.

Student Ratings of College Teaching: What the Research Has to Say. Jacobs, LC. Although research tends to support the validity, reliability, and usefulness of student ratings for improving teaching and to aid in personnel decisions, questions arise about factors apart from teaching performance that might influence these ratings. Recent research confirms that a number of such variables can influence student ratings, but do not appear to significantly bias their overall interpretation.

Student Ratings Offer Useful Input to Teacher Evaluations (ERIC Digest). ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation. Addresses concerns about the validity of student ratings in teacher evaluation and presents a case for their use.

Student Ratings: 15 Common Beliefs & Misconceptions. Carnegie Mellon University - Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence. Clarifies 15 common misconceptions about student ratings of teaching. Adapted from R.A. Arreola (1995), Developing a Comprehensive Faculty Evaluation System. Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing.

Taking Stock: Evaluations from Students. Bruner, RF. Provides several useful tips on how to take stock of your classroom work at the end of a course. Discusses assessing student evaluations for cross-sectional patterns; evidence of command of subject matter; and connection; the details of one's teaching; student vs teacher norms and trends. Also provides suggestions on how to approach changing one's behavior.

The Counterintuitive Nature of Student Evaluations of Faculty or - Raise Your Teaching Effectiveness Rating by Canceling Class!. Slagle, ML & Icenogle, ML. Based on a sample of over 3000 student responses collected to evaluate a new instrument, concludes that (a) wide discrepancies exist among students in their understanding of concepts and terminology typically used in the faculty rating tools; (b) students have no common understanding of why they are asked to complete such surveys or how they will be used and (c) that there is little motivation on the part of many students to take such evaluations seriously.

The Professonal Evaluation of Teaching (ACLS Occasional Paper No. 33). McKeachie, WJ. Provides a personal historical account of student ratings of teaching and discusses their three major purposes. Concludes that the problem is not in the ratings themselves, but how they are used.

What Do They Know Anyway? - Student Evaluations of Teaching. Felder, RM. Dismisses five major myths about students' evaluation of teaching with reference to the research literature. Concludes that student evaluations of an instructor provide a reliable, valid assessment of that instructor's teaching effectiveness, especially if they reflect the views of many students in several different course offerings.