Planning an evaluation
‘Evaluation is a means of understanding the effects of our teaching on student learning. It implies collecting information about our work, interpreting the information, and making judgements about which actions should be taken to improve practice … It should not be done to teachers but by teachers for the benefit of their professional competence and their students’ understanding’.
Ramsden, P. (1992)
Evaluation is the process of gathering information about various aspects of a unit in an academic course or program, analysing and interpreting this information, and most importantly acting on the results for the purposes of improving teaching and student learning. Effective documentation of the quality of the teaching and unit is a key factor in the evaluation process.
Planning an evaluation
Before evaluating your unit, it might be helpful to answer a few questions based on what you already know:
- What were the main things you wanted the students to gain from your unit or course?
- Were your aims for the unit/course clear to the students?
- Has the assessment been clearly spelt out and was it fair?
- Was the workload reasonable?
- Did your students get sufficient help in their study of this unit?
- What do you feel went particularly well in this unit?
- What areas are you unsure about?
From the answers to these questions you may be able to focus on a few areas into which you are keen to enquire. Now consider from where, whom and how you might best gain information and feedback on the aspects in which you are most interested.
Sources for evaluation
Sources include your students, your peers, experts in your discipline area, alumni, documents, literature on unit specific teaching methods, your departmental/institutional statistics.
Methods of evaluation
There are many methods that will help you to evaluate the effectiveness of your teaching and the quality of your unit. You can collect your own evaluation data following ethical guidelines of the University and using methods such as:
- Existing data from large scale surveys using questionnaires eg alumni questionnaire, Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ)
- Discussions or interviews (formal / informal) eg focus group discussion, exit interviews
- Key performance indicator data - Documents / statistical analysis eg pass / attendance / attrition rates, quality of written materials, investigating courses and units taught at other institutions
- Students’ diaries / journals / letters, suggestion box
Alternatives to student based feedback
There are a number of other alternatives to student based feedback that you can also use to evaluate your teaching.