This section summarizes six key concerns with student evaluations of teaching (SETs) and offers ready-to-implement workshops for reviewing their existing SET or developing a new one.
A key motivation for redesigning faculty evaluation processes is the heavy reliance on student evaluations of teaching (SETs). The following research was conducted in Spring 2021 to gather information about types of SETs administered at ACS schools, the ways in which SET data are used, and concerns about their current instruments:
- A survey distributed to each ACS campus to be completed by an administrator (provost, associate dean, or the like) and a faculty member who serves on the review/promotion or tenure/personnel committee, preferably the committee chair
- Focus groups with multiple constituencies, including students, provosts/deans, and members of faculty personnel committees
- A review of the extensive existing scholarship on SETs
This research revealed the six dominant concerns described below and led to the development of two ready-to-implement workshops on improving student evaluations of teaching on your campus.
Concerns about Student Evaluations of Teaching
- Low response rates
- No faculty input in construction of questions
- Lack of agreement on how to measure “teaching effectiveness”
- Influence of irrelevant or inappropriate factors
- Misleading comparisons among instructors
- Bias
These concerns are described in detail in this PDF.
Ready-to-Implement Workshops on Student Evaluations of Teaching (SETs)
Below are two workshops ready to be implemented on your campus.
SET Workshop I. Using Existing SETs: Uses, Issues, and Best Practices
This workshop guides participants in reviewing their existing student evaluations of teaching (SET).