Beyond Student Evaluation of Teaching: Identifying and addressing academic staff development needs

Abstract

Student evaluation of teaching is a commonly accepted means of obtaining feedback on the quality of university teaching. However, its usefulness in contributing to improved teaching performance is dependent on the extent to which staff respond to and apply the information obtained in this way. This paper reports the results of a project designed to extend the application of student evaluations by using them as the basis for staff development. Survey ndings from 87 staff and 127 students indicate the priorities for academic and course development perceived by each group. Booklets based on these perceived needs were developed by collaborative staff-student groups and made available to enable staff to improve their teaching in response to student evaluations.

Öğretim Elemanlarının Ölçme ve Değerlendirme Yeterlik Algılarının Belirlenmesi

“…Overall student performance was not evaluated and formative assessment was not applied. Ballantyne, Borthwick and Packer's (2000) study shows that instructors lacked the skills to evaluate the learning processes and feedback. These studies emphasize that undergraduate education faculty lacks and therefore is short of providing the necessary skills of test and assessment to teacher candidates.…”

Who is Learning what from Student Evaluations of Teaching?

“…Each group produced a range of strategies and practical suggestions for overcoming common problems. Booklets were produced by all the groups which were then edited and the series published for use within the University -the series was called Enhancing Teaching and Learning (Ballantyne, Borthwick & Packer, 2000). In this fashion, students and staff aligned themselves together against problems and issues in the teaching-learning nexus.…”

“…Also at QUT, an example of the use of SET to inform professional staff development was created by Ballantyne, Borthwick and Packer (2000) as a special project implemented by the School of Professional Studies. In this project 87 staff and 127 students were surveyed as to their experience of the teaching/learning dynamic and asked to focus on areas of possible improvement.…”

Applying Kaizen to University Teaching Through Weekly Course Evaluation

“…One of the reasons of these findings is that lecturers do not change many aspects of their teaching, even if they generally assess teaching evaluations to be useful (Wachtel, 1998;Beran et al, 2005). Not only on course level, also departments and universities face the challenge to develop measures out of student evaluations (Ballantyne et al, 2000).…”