Teaching and Learning Forum on Student Evaluations

BY: .

Mr Doug Engelbrecht of the School of Management, Information Technology and Governance presented a thought-provoking seminar on student evaluations at a teaching and learning forum hosted by the College Dean of Teaching and Learning.

In his presentation, Englebrecht said the use of student evaluation data as a tool for performance management had distorted the alternative purpose of Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) as a tool for instructor development.

The active proliferation of SET as a tool for evaluating instructor effectiveness which began in the 1970s had

•  the reliability and validity of SET as a proxy for direct evaluation of instructor effectiveness was arguable;

•  the use of a device aimed at measuring student satisfaction with instruction, could give rise to an ominous manipulation of  assessment and teaching practice;

•  there were flaws in the idea of achieving an objective, widely applicable interval measure of instructional effectiveness through subjective assessment, especially when there is limited control affected by the instructor over many factors contributing to student satisfaction.

The presentation emphasised that multiple perspectives were needed. Student feedback, peer assessment, results spread, results consistency and external examiner reports all contributed to theory triangulation, a construct familiar to academics.

Englebrecht summed it up: ‘SET is here to stay - get used to it and make it work for you.’

-            Kriben Pillay