ERIC Number: EJ1032387
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2014
Pages: 17
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1359-6748
EISSN: N/A
Using Student Evaluations to Improve Individual and Department Teaching Qualities
Hedges, Mary R.; Webber, Don J.
Research in Post-Compulsory Education, v19 n3 p323-339 2014
Student evaluations can be seen as an opportunity for students to vent their views on the quality of teaching that they receive, and sometimes instructors trivialise the importance of this opportunity for dialogue with students and colleagues and reflection on teaching practice. This paper takes student evaluations of teaching quality seriously and proposes a new theoretical framework that enables greater utilisation of such information. We illustrate how information from evaluations can be used to identify areas where the whole department has strengths and weaknesses and where individual instructors perform relative to their own department. This information can be used to identify individuals with specific areas of expertise and shape best practice within departments, across departments and/or across institutions. It can also be used to highlight individuals who may require further professional development and reveal areas of mediocrity that are at risk of intervention from a higher level. Finally, it suggests ways to implement shared best practice in order to improve department teaching quality assessment results and individual teaching performance.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Student Evaluation, Instructional Effectiveness, Teacher Effectiveness, Teacher Improvement, Teacher Evaluation, College Faculty, Police School Relationship, Feedback (Response), Comparative Analysis, Student Surveys, Parent Surveys
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: New Zealand
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A