Section IV (A) of Faculty Rule 3335-3-35 requires departments to assure that students are given the opportunity to evaluate every course every time it is taught. The University recognizes the value of soliciting commentary from students on their experiences in the classroom.

TIU faculty must develop and implement appropriate policies for collecting student input as well as procedures for interpreting data collected from students. One method for gathering student evaluation data is the Student Evaluation of Instruction (SEI) form; however, this is not the only possibility. Also see: Student Evaluation at Other Institutions.

THE STUDENT EVALUATION OF INSTRUCTION (SEI)

One student rating form that is available at Ohio State is the Student Evaluation of Instruction (SEI). A 10-item form, the SEI was designed by a faculty-led, Ohio State committee to provide a standardized survey instrument for the collection of student feedback on the quality of instruction. This feedback is used as one of several methods of assessing teaching effectiveness when making personnel decisions regarding promotion, tenure, and merit pay.

The SEI has several characteristics that make it particularly useful for such assessment. First, it is applicable to a wide variety of instructional settings and focuses on dimensions of teaching performance that are generally acknowledged as being important. Second, the content of the questionnaire and certain aspects of its administration are standardized. Third, an instructor's scores on a global question can be compared with those of others teaching similar courses.

The items ask for student feedback on such elements of instruction as "The subject matter of this course was well organized," "The course was intellectually stimulating," and "The instructor was generally interested in teaching." Forms are sent automatically to all instructors, who may use them and return them to the University Registrar for tabulation, using a process designed to preserve confidentiality and validity. Instructors then receive reports that display their scores, their college's or school's mean scores, and university mean scores for all items, along with interpretive graphs.

USES AND INTERPRETATION OF THE SEI

Within the University and within units, SEIs are used for summative purposes, such as tenure and promotion for faculty and funding for teaching associates. Similar instruments are used at many peer institutions for the same purposes. The interpretation of the results and the use of such evaluations are hotly debated topics.

As the SEI Handbook [September 2001] indicates,

Despite the utility and effectiveness of the SEI, please keep in mind that it is a blunt instrument and that its results should not be regarded as highly precise. Please also keep in mind that the SEI is only one source of data for assessing teaching (p. 7).

This means that numerical assessments that determine solely whether a faculty member does or does not meet or exceed the college or University mean in the cumulative average on the SEI are inappropriate. Trivial differences in mean values are not a basis for comparing one instructor with another. The focus should be on patterns of responses and on general comparisons rather than on trivial differences in mean values. However, it is clear that when a substantial proportion of students are consistently dissatisfied with the teaching of a particular instructor, a problem exists that requires departmental attention. The University cannot recruit and retain high quality students unless they are satisfied with the quality of the instruction that they receive.

Also at issue is the usefulness of the results of such instruments for formative purposes, such as the improvement of the quality of instruction and a starting point for self-reflection by the instructor. Interpretation of the results and the steps that instructors should take in response to these results are likewise debated. Several studies indicate that instructors are far more likely to make use of student feedback if they discuss it with someone else. FTAD staff are available for voluntary and confidential consultation on interpreting and using student responses.

SOURCES FOR THIS ANALYSIS

Feldman's 1996 article, "Identifying exemplary teaching: Using data from course and teacher evaluations," is the largest and most recent meta-study which attempts to correlate student evaluations of their instructors with student learning. Several other studies were used to augment Feldman; see works cited below.

We have applied Feldman's findings to Ohio State's SEI with two purposes in mind:

1. To provide references to recent research for those instructors and administrators who question the validity of the SEI.
2. To give instructors some suggestions on what they can do to meet the teaching objectives covered in the SEI's ten items.

To view the Rationale for SEI Items—Comparisons to Recent Research with Suggestions for Instructors, choose one of the following formats:

Narrative format—HTML
Table format—HTML
Summary—HTML (table columns 1&4)
Table format—PDF

The first column of the table shows the numbered items on the SEI. In the same column are comparable items from Feldman's research that most clearly deal with the same variable.

The second column provides the correlation statistics that suggest the degree to which that item could be related to student learning as measured by achievement tests like a final exam using Feldman's research as the basis.

The third column offers a theoretical rationale for why the factors represented by that item might be related to student learning. Items in brackets represent findings from the work of researchers other than Feldman which are relevant to the topic.

The fourth column provides suggestions on what an instructor might choose to do to meet the objectives implied in the SEI items in column one. Items in brackets correspond to bracketed items in the third column.

The items shown in the table should not be interpreted as having a causal relationship with student achievement; Feldman and the studies he cites only claim correlation. However, the rationales in column three, based on the best available research on learning and teaching, explain the value of soliciting feedback on these issue.

In addition, the factors shown in the table on the are not the only factors in effective teaching; they are the ones most commonly found on student evaluations that have the highest correlations with achievement and therefore might be considered the most valid student evaluation items. Other Feldman factors having r-values less that .30 were not included in the table unless directly related to the SEI items.

WORKS CITED

Abrami, P., & Mizener, D. (1985). Student/Instructor Attitude Similarity, Student Ratings, and Course Performance. Journal of Educational Psychology; vol. 77 no. 6, 693-702.

Abrami, P., Perry, R., & Leventhal, L. (1982). The relationship between student personality characteristics, teacher ratings, and student achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 74, 111-125.

Brodie, D. (1998). Do Students Report that Easy Professors Are Excellent Teachers? Canadian Journal of Higher Education 28 no.1, 1-20.

Cohen, P. (1981). Student ratings of instruction and student achievement: A meta-analysis of multisection validity studies. Review of Educational Research, 51, 281-309.

Feldman, K. (1996). "Identifying exemplary teaching: Using data from course and teacher evaluations." In M. Svinicki and R. Menges, (Eds.). Honoring Exemplary Teaching, New Directions for Teachingand Learning, 65, 41-50. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

<Kolitch, E., & Dean, A. (1998). Item 22, "Overall, [the Instructor] Was an Effective Teacher": Multiple Meanings and Confounding Influences. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, vol. 9 no. 2, 119-40.

McCroskey, J. (1992). An Introduction to Communication in the Classroom. Edina, Minnesota: Burgess International Group.

Teven, J. & McCroskey, J. (1996). The Relationship of Perceived Teacher Caring with Student Learning and Teacher Evaluation. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Speech Communication Association (82nd, San Diego, CA, November 23-26, 1996).

Zelby, L. (1974). Student-Faculty Evaluation. Science, 183 4131, 1267-1270.

OTHER NOTEWORTHY REFERENCES

Centra, J. (1993). Reflective Faculty Evaluation, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Theall, M., & Franklin, J. (1990). Student Ratings of Instruction: Issues for Improving Practice. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 43. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

To view the Rationale for SEI Items—Comparisons to Recent Research with Suggestions for Instructors, choose one of the following formats:

Narrative format—HTML
Table format—HTML
Summary—HTML (table columns 1&4)
Table format—PDF