End-of-Course Evaluation Information and Process

Evaluation Options for 05-06

Chen, Y. & Hoshower, L. B. (2003) "Student evaluation of teaching effectiveness: an assessment of student perception and motivation."  Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education 28, (1) 72-88.

Over the past century, student ratings have steadily continued to take precedence in faculty evaluation systems in North America and Australia, are increasingly reported in Asia and Europe and are attracting considerable attention in the Far East. Since student ratings are the most, if not the only, influential measure of teaching effectiveness, active participation by and meaningful input from students can be critical in the success of such teaching evaluation systems.  Nevertheless, very few studies have looked into students' perception of the teaching evaluation systems and their motivation to participate.  This study employs expectancy theory to evaluate some key factors that motivate students to participate in the teaching evaluation process.  The results show that students generally consider an improvement in teaching to be the most attractive outcome of a teaching evaluation system.  The second most attractive outcome was using teaching evaluations to improve course content and format.  Using teaching evaluations for a professor's tenure, promotion and salary rise decisions and making the results of evaluations available for students' decisions on course and instructor selection were less important from the students' standpoint.  Students' motivation to participate in teaching evaluations is also impacted significantly by their expectation that they will be able to provide meaningful feedback.  Since quality student input is an essential antecedent of meaningful student evaluations of teaching effectiveness, the results of this study should be considered thoughtfully as the evaluation system is designed, implemented, and operated.

Crumbley, L., Henry, B. K., & Kratchman, S. H. (2001) "Students' perceptions of the evaluation of college teaching."  Quality Assurance in Education, 9 (4) 197-207.

The validity of student evaluation of teaching (SET) has been continually debated in the academic community.  The primary purpose of this research is to survey student perceptions to provide any evidence of inherent weaknesses in the use of SETs to measure and report teaching effectiveness accurately.  The study surveyed over 500 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in various accounting courses over two years at a large public university.  Students were asked to rate several factors on their importance in faculty evaluations and identify instructor traits and behaviors warranting lower ratings.  The study provides further evidence that the use of student evaluations of teaching for personnel decisions is not appropriate.  Students will punish instructors who engage in a number of well-known learning/teaching techniques, which encourages instructors to increase SET scores by sacrificing the learning process.  Other measures and methods should be employed to ensure that teaching effectiveness is accurately measured and properly rewarded.  Using student data as a surrogate for teaching performance is an illusionary performance measurement system.

Dommeyer, C. J., Baum, P. Hanna, R. W., & Chapman, K. S. (2004) "Gathering faculty teaching evaluations by in-class and online surveys:  their effects on response rates and evaluations"  Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education 29, (5) 611-623.

This study compares student evaluations of faculty teaching that were completed in-class with those collected online.  The two methods of evaluation were compared on response rates and on evaluation scores.  In addition, this study investigates whether treatments or incentives can affect the response to online evaluations.  It was found that the response rate to the online survey was generally lower than that to the in-class survey.  Additionally, the study found that online evaluations do not produce significantly different mean evaluation scores than traditional in-class evaluations, even when different incentives are offered to students who are asked to complete online evaluations.

Morgan, D. A., Sneed, J., & Swinney, L. (2003) "Are student evaluations a valid measure of teaching effectiveness:  perceptions of accounting faculty members and administrators."  Management Research News 26 (7), 17-23.

This article examines the perceptions of both administrators and faculty relating to the validity of student evaluations and the existence of possible biasing factors.  The results indicate that administrators believe student evaluations measure teaching effectiveness to a greater degree than faculty, while faculty members believe their personality is the primary determinant of ratings on student evaluations.  Faculty also believe that the type of course, the work load of a course, and the grade distribution of a course have a larger impact on student evaluations when compared with administrator's beliefs.

Nafulin, D. H., Ware, J. E., & Donnelly, F. A. (1973) "The Doctor Fox lecture:  A paradigm of education seduction."  Journal of Medical Education 48, 630-635.

This is a corner stone article referenced in many of the articles on student evaluations.

On the basis of publications supporting the hypothesis that student ratings of educators depend largely on personality variables and not educational content, the authors programmed an actor to teach charismatically and nonsubstantively on a topic about which he knew nothing.  The authors hypothesized that given a sufficiently impressive lecture paradigm, even experienced educators participating in a new learning experience can be seduced into feeling satisfied that they have learned despite irrelevant, conflicting, and meaningless content conveyed by the lecturer.  The hypothesis was supported when 55 subjects responded favorably at the significant level to an eight-item questionnaire concerning their attitudes towards the lecture.  The study serves as an example to educators that their effectiveness must be evaluated beyond the satisfaction with which students view them and raises the possibility of training actors to give "legitimate" lectures as an innovative approach toward effective education.  The authors conclude by emphasizing hat student satisfaction with learning may represent little more than the illusion of having learned.

Read, W. J. & Rama, D. V. (2001) "The relationship between student evaluations of teaching and faculty evaluations."  Journal of Education for Business, 189-192.

The AACSB, AECC, AAHE and other institutions have recently suggested that colleges and universities reassess their commitment to teaching.  Reliance on student evaluations (SEs) of faculty teaching has been criticized in the literature because many SEs include items that students cannot properly assess and exclude demographic and contextual questions that are known sources of response bias.  This study surveyed administrators of accounting programs from a cross-section of school and programs to determine whether there is an association between the weight given to teaching and the weight assigned to Ses.  The results show a statistically significant inverse relationship between the weight given SEs and the emphasis placed on teaching.

Schmelkin, L. P., Spencer, K. J. & Gellman, E. S. (1997) "Faculty perspectives on course and teacher evaluations."  Research in Higher Education, 38 (5), 575-592.

Student ratings of instruction have been the subject of numerous studies with much of the research focusing on the validity and reliability of the ratings themselves.  Comparatively little empirical investigation has been devoted to the perceptions of the individuals who are the subjects of the ratings, that is, the faculty.  The current study explored faculty perspectives on the usefulness of student ratings for formative and summative purposes, and the actual use of student ratings for summative purposes.  Contrary to what might have been deduced from the anecdotal literature, the results of this study do not portray a great deal of resistance to student ratings in general or to their use for formative and summative evaluation. It was also found that student ratings are actually being used for the latter purpose.  The usefulness of the student feedback was viewed differentially by the faculty, with feedback on their interaction wit students seen as most useful, followed by feedback on their grading practices, global ratings of instructor and course, and finally structural issues of the course.

Simpson, P. M. & Siguaw, J. A. (2000) "Student evaluations of teaching: an exploratory study of the faculty response."  Journal of Marketing Education, 22 (3) 199-213.

Student evaluation of teaching instruments are commonly administered by universities to presumably provide feedback to faculty for improvement of teaching effectiveness.  Instead, these measures are routinely used as a basis for determining faculty merit, promotion, and tenure, making the instruments vitally important to faculty.  As a result, some faculty members may engage in various activities designed specifically to affect student ratings on teaching evaluations rather than to improve instruction, although no known research exists about the extent of such influencing activities.  The purpose of this research is to begin the exploration of marketing faculty perceptions of teaching and perceived efforts to influence the measure.  Furthermore, this study seeks to define categories of faculty activities and behaviors that may be used to influence student evaluations of teaching rating and to identify possible solutions.

Spencer, K. & Schmelkin, L. P. (2002) "Student Perspectives on Teaching and its Evaluation."  Assessment & Evaluation in higher Education, 27 (5) 397-409.

The research on student ratings of instruction, while voluminous, has had minimal focus on the perceptions of the students who do the ratings.  The current study explored student perspectives on course and teacher ratings as well as some issues related to teaching effectiveness and faculty roles.  It was found that students are generally willing to do evaluations and to provide feedback, and have no particular fear of repercussions.  However, they have little confidence that faculty or administrators pay attention to the results, and do not even consult the ratings themselves.  The students view teaching and advising as the most important roles that should be played by faculty, yet project that faculty, while also viewing teaching as the most important, would rank research about the more student-interactive advising.  Canonical correlations among various scales reveal a strong emphasis on such issues of the importance of faculty respect for student views.