Below is the final report of the University Committee on Student Rating of
Faculty Instruction. The committee wishes to bring to your attention that
we are putting in place means to help faculty improve their teaching. The
data generated from these procedures will be available only to instructors
and will not be seen by department heads or deans--unless faculty want
administrators to see them. Also, we have suggestions about the
evaluation process could be improved.
The committee on the Student Rating of
Faculty Instruction has the following recommendations to Faculty Council:
1. Current Evaluation Form.
We recommend that for several reasons the current form not be changed with
one minor exception. The committee would like the form continued as is to
establish a baseline. The five question form we have now for computing
medians has been in place for only two years. The committee considered
but rejected the idea of adding additional questions. Students on the
committee stated that it was their impression that many students were
inattentive to evaluations which had a lengthy number of questions. Some
departments are still adding their own questions to the form. Also, we
want to retain a system which allows faculty an opportunity to add
questions that might help them improve their teaching.
The exception is that there is a statement on the present form that the
comments students make are sent to the provost, dean, and department head
in addition to the faculty member teaching the class. That is not true.
The comments go only to the department head and the individual faculty
member. This is in accordance with a resolution that Faculty Council
passed two years ago. Dick Gruetzemacher of Institutional Research
promises that the erroneous statement will be eliminated the next time
that forms are printed.
2. Improvement of Teaching.
The committee was concerned that the student evaluations have so far
mainly been used for evaluation rather than improvement of teaching. We
recognize that the comments section is, in fact, useful for improvement of
teaching, but the comments are collected towards the end of the semester
and faculty do not see them all grades have been turned in. For faculty
interested in improving their courses, it would be better to have earlier
feedback.
Based on a presentation made to the committee by Karen Adsit, Director of
the Walker Teaching Center, the committee recommends the following:
a) Faculty make use of the Centers resources. Karen stands ready to help
faculty in a variety of ways. For example, it would be possible to
administer some type of questionnaire in a given class early in the
semester to see what is working and what is not. When the student
evaluations are handed out to students later, follow-up questions could be
added to the form. The purpose of asking students such questions would be
solely to improve teaching. The results would not go to department heads
or any other administrator--unless the faculty member chose to share them.
B) The committee also recommends the creation of a Peer Review Panel.
Department heads could nominate faculty within their departments
recognized for good teaching. The nominations would go to Karen Adsit.
Faculty willing to serve on the panel would have to attend some type of
training seminar. They would visit the classrooms of faculty who
requested their services. Any recommendations that the peer reviewers
made would not be used for evaluative purposes. Department heads would
not be informed of the comments of the peer reviewers. The committee also
thought that the reviewers should always cross disciplinary
boundaries--e.g., an English teacher might evaluate the teaching of an
instructor of chemistry. The focus of the evaluation would obviously be
on pedagogical method rather than content.
Information about the Peer Review panel will go on a WEB site and also be
distributed on Raven. It will go into operation sometime next fall.
3. Evaluation of Faculty Instruction.
The committee was also concerned that there has been inappropriate use by
administrators of the student evaluations. The committee believes that
such mistakes are based on misunderstanding rather than malice. Karen
Adsit and Dick Gruetzemacher have volunteered to prepare a tip sheet for
administrators on how to interpret the numerical data generated by the
evaluations. They will do so early next fall before reappointment of
untenured faculty must be considered. The tip sheet will also be
distributed to all faculty via RAVEN and will be accessible on a WEB site.
The committee is also aware that there is some concern that occasionally
department heads have misrepresented the quality of faculty teaching by
selective editing of comments on the student evaluations. Faculty who
feel that their teaching has been so misrepresented are urged to insert
all the comments from the evaluations in their EDO folders.
4. Gender Bias.
The committee also considered the issue of gender bias on the student
evaluations. Some studies do show that students rate male faculty higher
than female faculty on student evaluations. However, according to Karen
Adsit and Dick Gruetzemacher, most studies do not so indicate.
To ascertain if there is a problem at UTC, the committee asked Dick
Gruetzemacher to investigate. The only practical way to do that was to
compute means on the responses to our five question form. Using the most
recent data from the student evaluations, Dr. Gruetzemacher found there
was no bias against female faculty. If anything, they did slightly better
than male faculty. Here are the results of his investigation:
Full Time Faculty Adjunct
Female Male Female Male
Question 1 5.41 5.34 5.37 5.34
Question 2 5.31 5.17 5.31 5.28
Question 3 5.59 5.60 5.58 5.56
Question 4 5.59 5.57 5.68 5.60
Question 5 5.45 5.42 5.56 5.50
Respectfully submitted,
Mike Russell, Chair of Student Rating of Faculty Instruction Committee
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