Research on Student Ratings of Instruction: Implications for Teachers and Professional Development Programs

Evaluations of teaching effectiveness have taken many forms over the years, but none have been as persistent or commonplace as student ratings of instruction (SRI). SRIs have become a fundamental component of evaluating faculty effectiveness in higher education. Support for SRIs comes from end-users of the data who believe that students are uniquely positioned to evaluate faculty based on their experiences and perceptions of the instruction they received. Pragmatically, institutions tend to rely on SRI results for teacher evaluations because they reason that students learn more from faculty who are highly rated by students. However, to what degree is this enthusiasm warranted? Are SRIs reliable, valid, or trustworthy at all? The main goals of this chapter are to present an overview of SRI research, explain ways of preparing students for SRIs (both formative and summative), and present methods for teachers to use when examining the SRI data. To these ends, this chapter will briefly review the SRI research, including evidence for the value of SRI data despite commonly held misconceptions about the possible influence of factors such as class size, GPA, gender, and professor rank. Attention is then given to understanding how to improve responses to questions that tap constructs students are unlikely to be readily able to respond to, such as “Did this course improve your critical thinking skills?” and to general agreement questions about learning, such as “The pacing of the materials was appropriate.” Techniques for interpreting constructed responses from students, such as “Stop lecturing!” are also provided. Finally, the paper moves on to highlighting the connection between collecting and acting on formative classroom surveys that support positive transfer to end-of-term SRIs and offers methods to analyze SRIs individually as well as outlining an approach to teacher development with SRI data and teacher-centered consultations by PD programs.

Lessons Learned from the Development of Open Educational Resources at Post-Secondary Level in the Field of Environmental Modelling: An Exploratory Study

Open educational resources (OER) have become increasingly popular in recent times. Here, the aim was to synthesise the lessons learned through the development of OER materials for a university-level course called “environmental modelling”. Consequently, the topics of discussion included: (i) how to choose an appropriate creative commons license; (ii) ways of incorporating materials from other sources, such as publicly available sources, other open access materials, and an author’s own published materials if not published under a creative commons license; (iii) the impact of the developed OER in the field of environmental modelling; and (iv) the challenges in developing OER material. Upon developing the materials, we observed the following: (i) students enrolled in the course did not purchase textbooks; (ii) our OER materials ranked as one of the most accessed (i.e., number 7) materials according to the usage data that summed the number of file downloads and item views from PRISM (i.e., the hosting platform maintained by the University of Calgary); (iii) the students learned relatively better as per the data acquired by the University of Calgary’s universal student ratings of instruction (USRI) instrument; and (iv) other universities expressed interest in adopting the materials.

The Affection of Student Ratings of Instruction toward EFL Instructors

Student ratings of instruction can be a valuable indicator of teaching because the quality measurement of instruction identifies areas where improvement is needed. Student ratings of instruction are expected to evaluate and enhance the teaching strategies. Evaluation of teaching effectiveness has been officially implemented in Taiwanese higher education since 2005. Therefore, this research investigated Taiwanese EFL university instructors’ perceptions toward student ratings of instruction and the impact of student ratings of instruction on EFL instructors’ classroom teaching. The data of this quantitative study was collected by 21 questionnaires. 32 qualified participants were selected from ten universities in the northern part of Taiwan. The results indicate those EFL instructors’ perceptions and experiences toward student ratings of instruction affects their approach to teaching, but EFL instructors do not prepare lessons based on the results of student ratings of instruction.

Addressing Common Concerns about Online Student Ratings of Instruction: A Research-Informed Approach

Concerns over the usefulness and validity of student ratings of instruction (SRI) have continued to grow with online processes. This paper presents seven common and persistent concerns identified and tested during the development and implementation of a revised SRI policy at a Canadian research-intensive university. These concerns include bias due to insufficient sample size, student academic performance, polarized student responses, disciplinary differences, class size, punishment of rigorous instructor standards, and timing of final exams. We analyzed SRI responses from two mandatory Likert scale questions related to the course and instructor, both of which were consistent over time and across all academic units at our institution. The results show that overall participation in online SRIs is representative of the student body, with academically stronger students responding at a higher rate, and the SRIs, themselves, providing evidence that may moderate worries about the concerns.