Contexts and purposes for evaluation




Teaching services continue to meet the changing needs of the University.

Such quality assurance agendas are based primarily on an economic-rationalist interpretation of quality and seek to assure that such teaching represents value for money.

Sought to apply performance based funding strategies to university activities, including teaching

Such uses of student evaluation of teaching have generally however been secondary to the use of such evaluation as a source of feedback to support teachers in planning improvements.

It was usually difficult to relate data collected for improvement purposes with data collected to demonstrate ‘quality’ teaching.

For students the student evaluation of teaching agenda is likely to be one of providing a mechanism by which they can voice their concerns about courses and teaching that do not meet their individual perceived needs.

If teachers do gather student feedback, and are inclined to make changes on the basis of such feedback, they may not do so as the changes often do not get support from colleagues. If teachers do go ahead and institute changes, they may happen in the face of criticism and resistance from less ‘enlightened’ colleagues.

That student feedback on teaching systems are increasingly being called upon to fulfil both institutional prove and local/individual improve purposes.

While the 3P model was not intended for the purposes, the elements of the model provide a useful framework for tracking our evolving understanding of student learning and how this has been mirrored in our work as staff developers.

Since learning was the ultimate aim of teaching, then maybe the quality of the learning outcome was relevant in any consideration of the quality of the teaching. The characteristics of the student, as well as the teacher’s teaching and quality of the course design, could really only be considered from the perspective of the end result.

Teachers can only explicitly influence some components of the learning process before it passes into the hands (or heads) of students. Information on how students perceive and respond to teaching is possibly of more importance than information on the inputs of teaching context and student characteristics alone.

An alternative strategy might be to refocus some questionnaire items on student perceptions as a particularly important and predictive aspect of the teaching and learning process.

Australian universities reveals a preponderance of teacher/teaching focused items.

Items focusing on student’s perceptions of the teaching and learning experience yield information on teaching behaviours and the teaching context but from the students perspective.



Australia has been a leader in recognising the importance of student feedback in quality assurance at the national level.

At the university level, the gathering of student feedback on the quality of teaching is ubiquitous; however, its use can predominantly be considered as serving a quality enhancement role to inform personal and career development.

‘principles of effective evaluation’ is not much discussed in this article although how Australian Universities introduced student evaluation can be understood.

Interesting point – connecting evaluation and funding (government’s approach
to quality assurance in higher education)



Good teachers are always evaluating themselves.

Teaching should be better, that students should enjoy the finest possible experience, that opportunities for those able to benefit from higher education should be widened, and that universities should be accountable for public monies they spend.

What do we want our students to know (about the subject) the equivalent question in the case of academic staff is : what do we want our teachers to know (about teaching their subjects)? Evaluation that will really improve teaching quality must follow similar principles to assessment that will genuinely help students to learn.

The  three most important generic areas to evaluate are:
Positive attitude towards students;
Ability to communicate well with other people;
Lively interest in improving teaching through reflection and action

The main reason concerns perceptions of reward and support system

Based of course on evidence about the relations between the quality of student learning and assessment. You can then  check the list against actual practice in order to identify areas for improvement and to monitor progress.

It is best if we see it as a kind of intellectually curious activity, almost a form of research

The techniques of collecting evidence are less important than the motivation for evaluative activity and one’s understanding of these principles

The most significant challenging aspects of evaluation comprise interpretation of results and the action that follows to improve teaching.

Listening to and learning from your students is an essential component of all teaching and of any evaluation

The potential of any method of evaluation or performance measurement to improve university quality depends on professional activity undertaken by lecturers


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