The Brown Center for Faculty Innovation is launching a monthly brown bag series to offer faculty and staff a place to discuss topical issues about teaching, learning and higher education. Each conversation will be anchored by a short reading. Please join us!
When: Thursday, 11:30 – 1:00 PM
Where: Hand Art Center Seminar Room
Topic: Student Evaluations of Teaching – Are they valid?
Discussion Article: Teaching Eval Shake-up, Inside Higher Ed – 22 May 2018
The first Brown Brown Bag in the series builds upon a discussion sparked last May regarding Student Evaluations of Teaching (aka SETs). SETs are ubiquitous in the American Higher education system as a measure of teaching effectiveness, yet a growing body of research points to issues of validity and bias with the surveys. Some have gone so far as to indicate this method of evaluation is discriminatory and illegal. A recent arbitration against a Canadian university used expert opinion to establish that SETs cannot be used for the purposes of measuring teaching effectiveness for promotion or tenure. What implications do these events have for Stetson?
Bring your lunch and engage in a thought-provoking discussion!
Additional Readings
- Gannon, B. K. (2018). In Defense (Sort of) of Student Evaluations of Teaching – The Chronicle of Higher Education.
- Hornstein, H. A. (2017). Student evaluations of teaching are an inadequate assessment tool for evaluating faculty performance. Cogent Education, 4(1), 1304016.
- 2012 Course Evaluation Revision Task Force Report – Stetson University
- Student Evaluations of Teaching are Not Valid by John W. Lawrence (AAUP)
- https://ocufa.on.ca/assets/RFA.v.Ryerson_Freishtat.Expert.Supplemental.Reports_2016.2018.pdf?utm_source=OCUFA+Report&utm_campaign=7bb120ce70-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_07_12_01_15&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_458512323c-7bb120ce70-&mc_cid=7bb120ce70&mc_eid=%5bUNIQID%5d
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Linse, A. R. (2017). Interpreting and using student ratings data: Guidance for faculty serving as administrators and on evaluation committees. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 54, 94–106.
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Franklin, J. (2001). Interpreting the Numbers: Using a Narrative to Help Others Read Student Evaluations of Your Teaching Accurately. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 2001(87), 85–100.
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Bi, H. H. (2018). A robust interpretation of teaching evaluation ratings. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 43(1), 79–93.