Instructors' perspectives on the utility of student ratings of instruction.

摘要

The purpose of this study was to investigate the utility of student ratings of instruction from the university instructors' perspectives. Two research questions guided this study: what are instructors' attitudes about student ratings of instruction, and how useful do instructors report ratings to be for the purpose of instructional improvement? Over the past century student ratings of instruction have become the most used measure of teaching effectiveness in the U.S.A., Canada, and Australia, and they are steadily taking precedence in faculty evaluations in other countries around the world. While research addressing the psychometric characteristics of student ratings of instruction abounds, comparatively little empirical research has been devoted to the consequential validity, or "utility" of student ratings.; In the present study instructors were surveyed regarding their attitudes about student ratings of instruction, and the ratings' perceived usefulness for improving instruction. The sample consisted of 357 instructors at a major Canadian university, where the evaluation is carried out in all courses at the end of each term. While instructor attitudes reflected a broad range of responses toward the adequacy and validity of student ratings and their usefulness for improving overall instruction, overall attitudes were mildly positive. Although instructors tend to agree that the student rating practice is vital to institutional integrity, and is useful to administrators in making summative decisions, the results from student evaluations were only marginally valuable in their impact on enhancing instruction. In their written responses, instructors described their dissatisfaction with inadequately designed instruments and ineffective methods of receiving ratings results, as well as a pervasive apprehension regarding the potential for misuse or abuse of ratings data by other users. It is concluded that instructors find student ratings, in the form of a universal, end-of-term quantitative survey, to be of more use to administrators in summative evaluation, than to instructors for the purpose of enhancing specific aspects of instruction.