Teaching Evaluations

The Office of Faculty Advancement aims to facilitate your access to current research focused on teaching and learning so you and members of your Department understand the importance of multi-faceted teaching assessment programs. We are also here to help you with navigating the implementation-evaluation-feedback loop to address your instructional needs, to support your development as a teacher, and to provide students with quality learning experiences.
But how exactly is teaching effectiveness evaluated at Clemson University? Read on to learn more about the strategy and how best practices have been considered to ensure your efforts and accomplishments are reported and recognized.
A New Approach to Measure Teaching Effectiveness
Teaching and learning are two of your most important tasks as faculty in higher education, and Clemson University wants to see you excel at both. That's why we're shifting our approach to provide you with formative feedback that inspires new growth in your teaching role at Clemson University.
The University has adopted a new model to gauge your teaching effectiveness and contributions more accurately. In this new model, the evaluation of your teaching effectiveness includes feedback from instruction and course evaluation forms completed by students, where no single quantifier (i.e., one single question) from these forms may substitute for a wide-ranging review of the responses. The model also requires the inclusion of at least two additional evaluation metrics to support that assessment. Among other options, faculty may consider:
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Evidence-based measurements of student learning that meet defined student learning outcomes
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Evaluation (by peers and/or administrators) of course materials, learning objectives and examinations
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In-class visitation by peers and/or administrators
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A statement by the faculty member describing the faculty member's methods and/or a teaching philosophy
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Exit interviews/surveys with current graduates/alumni
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Copies of all course materials (syllabus, lectures, assignments, tests, examples of student work, Canvas page, communications, etc.)
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Profile of students (enrollment, the type of student taking the class: concentrators, first-year students, non-specialists, graduate students, etc.), especially important if you made efforts to adapt the class to them (add assessment piece)
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Documentation of innovative teaching approaches and special efforts invested to improve learning outcomes
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Faculty development efforts related to course design
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Inclusion of previous feedback, development of new courses, flipped courses, mentoring of other teachers, etc.
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Inclusion of course modules that support the goals of Clemson Elevate (integrating activities aimed at highlighting inclusive excellence, global engagement, service and/or experiential learning, etc.)
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Course audit for accessibility (Clemson Online)
Additional metrics to support the evaluation of teaching activities may also be acceptable. The combination of sources should strike a balance between the needs of faculty members and the need for an objective evaluation. We recommend consulting with your department chair(s) to develop the corresponding assessment plans.
Besides providing much broader options for faculty to measure the teaching and learning impact of their courses, the new strategy also aims to minimize the potential biases introduced when a single assessment method is used, as it is unlikely that multiple metrics will be biased in the same way. Furthermore, and regardless of the amount of literature supporting the importance of using multiple methods when assessing teaching performance, it is critical to highlight the role of faculty engagement and diverse teaching methods in elevating how we assess teaching effectiveness.

What Prompted These Changes
Student surveys, or student evaluations of teaching (SET) are one of the simplest and most widely used tools to evaluate teaching performance in higher education. Not only are they used by 94% of four-year liberal arts colleges in North America and Australia, but they're widely used in Asia and Europe and have attracted considerable attention in the Far East. While there are numerous reasons institutions might use student surveys to carry out faculty performance — such as cost-effectiveness, the ability to garner feedback with ease and the assumption that students have the ability to measure teaching effectiveness accurately — research shows that this method has a number of weaknesses that may yield inaccurate data, compromising the validity of faculty reports across institutions.
Among other concerns, SETs often represent student opinions of teaching capability instead of being a valid measure of faculty instructional effectiveness and/or student learning. Moreover, the numerical results of these surveys can be influenced by a number of factors that are unrelated to the instructor’s teaching effectiveness, including the type of course, the student’s own interpretation of the questions, the instructor’s attractiveness, personality and attire, the predominant gender of their department, and any incentives in place — from chocolates to grade inflation.
These factors also permeate into the “comments” section of the SETs, which can include malicious and abusive remarks, further compromising the overall value of the surveys towards decisions about hiring, firing, merit pay and promotion. It is also worth mentioning that one additional challenge linked to SETs is the low response rate, limiting the statistical value of the data collected. While several guidelines are discussed in the literature (including mandatory participation), these approaches should be carefully implemented, as they can further decrease the validity of the results.
If you are curious about what prompted these changes, want to learn more about how your performance is measured or would like to see the studies and sources for yourself, explore the list of references relevant to the topics below, as well as additional resources to navigate the new and refreshed process.
Get Further Insight
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References
- Uttl, B., C.A. White, and D.W. Gonzalez, Meta-analysis of faculty's teaching effectiveness: Student evaluation of teaching ratings and student learning are not related. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 2017. 54: p. 22-42 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stueduc.2016.08.007
- Berk, R.A., Start Spreading the News: Use Multiple Sources of Evidence to Evaluate Teaching. Journal of Faculty Development, 2018. 32(1): p. 73-81 https://www.schreyerinstitute.psu.edu/pdf/UseMultipleSourcesSRs_Berk_JFacDev1-11-2018.pdf
- Chen, Y. and L.B. Hoshower, Student Evaluation of Teaching Effectiveness: An assessment of student perception and motivation. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 2003. 28(1): p. 71-88 https://doi.org/10.1080/02602930301683
- Hobson, S.M. and D.M. Talbot, Understanding Student Evaluations: What All Faculty Should Know. College Teaching, 2001. 49(1): p. 26-31 https://doi.org/10.1080/87567550109595842
- Hornstein, H.A., Student evaluations of teaching are an inadequate assessment tool for evaluating faculty performance. Cogent Education, 2017. 4(1): p. 1304016 https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2017.1304016
- Spooren, P., B. Brockx, and D. Mortelmans, On the Validity of Student Evaluation of Teaching: The State of the Art. Review of Educational Research, 2013. 83(4): p. 598-642 https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654313496870
- Constantinou, C. and M. Wijnen-Meijer, Student evaluations of teaching and the development of a comprehensive measure of teaching effectiveness for medical schools. BMC Medical Education, 2022. 22(1): p. 113 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-022-03148-6
- Luo, M.N., Student Response Rate and Its Impact on Quantitative Evaluation of Faculty Teaching. The Advocate. 25(2) https://doi.org/10.4148/2637-4552.1137
- Clayson, D.E. and D.A. Haley, Are Students Telling Us the Truth? A Critical Look at the Student Evaluation of Teaching. Marketing Education Review, 2011. 21(2): p. 101-112 https://doi.org/10.2753/MER1052-8008210201
- Clayson, D.E., Student evaluation of teaching and matters of reliability. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 2018. 43(4): p. 666-681 https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2017.1393495
- Murray, D., et al., Exploring the personal and professional factors associated with student evaluations of tenure-track faculty. PLoS One, 2020. 15(6): p. e0233515 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0233515
- Shevlin, M., et al., The Validity of Student Evaluation of Teaching in Higher Education: Love me, love my lectures? Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 2000. 25(4): p. 397-405 https://doi.org/10.1080/713611436
- Clayson, D.E. and M.J. Sheffet, Personality and the Student Evaluation of Teaching. Journal of Marketing Education, 2006. 28(2): p. 149-160 https://doi.org/10.1177/0273475306288402
- Okoye, K., et al., Impact of students evaluation of teaching: a text analysis of the teachers qualities by gender. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 2020. 17(1): p. 49 https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-020-00224-z
- Mengel, F., J. Sauermann, and U. Zölitz, Gender Bias in Teaching Evaluations. Journal of the European Economic Association, 2019. 17(2): p. 535-566 https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvx057
- Keng, S.-H., Gender bias and statistical discrimination against female instructors in student evaluations of teaching. Labour Economics, 2020. 66: p. 101889 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2020.101889
- Storage, D., et al., The Frequency of “Brilliant” and “Genius” in Teaching Evaluations Predicts the Representation of Women and African Americans across Fields. PLOS ONE, 2016. 11(3): p. e0150194 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0150194
- Oliver, S., et al., Fitted: the impact of academics’ attire on students’ evaluations and intentions. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 2022. 47(3): p. 390-410 https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2021.1921105
- Aragón, O.R., E.S. Pietri, and B.A. Powell, Gender bias in teaching evaluations: the causal role of department gender composition. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2023. 120(4): p. e2118466120 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2118466120
- Stroebe, W., Student Evaluations of Teaching Encourages Poor Teaching and Contributes to Grade Inflation: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 2020. 42(4): p. 276-294 https://doi.org/10.1080/01973533.2020.1756817
- Lakeman, R., et al., Playing the SET game: how teachers view the impact of student evaluation on the experience of teaching and learning. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 2022: p. 1-11 https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2022.2126430
- Lakeman, R., et al., Appearance, insults, allegations, blame and threats: an analysis of anonymous non-constructive student evaluation of teaching in Australia. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 2022. 47(8): p. 1245-1258 https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2021.2012643
- Cunningham, S., et al., First, do no harm: automated detection of abusive comments in student evaluation of teaching surveys. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 2023. 48(3): p. 377-389 https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2022.2081668
- Kreitzer, R.J. and J. Sweet-Cushman, Evaluating Student Evaluations of Teaching: a Review of Measurement and Equity Bias in SETs and Recommendations for Ethical Reform. Journal of Academic Ethics, 2021. 20(1): p. 73-84 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10805-021-09400-w
- Marshik, T., et al., New frontiers in student evaluations of teaching: university efforts to design and test a new instrument for student feedback. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 2023: p. 1-14 https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2023.2190060
- Paolo, A.M., et al., Response Rate Comparisons of E-Mail- and Mail-Distributed Student Evaluations. Teaching and Learning in Medicine, 2000. 12(2): p. 81-84 https://doi.org/10.1207/S15328015TLM1202_4
- Zumrawi, A.A., S.P. Bates, and M. Schroeder, What response rates are needed to make reliable inferences from student evaluations of teaching? Educational Research and Evaluation, 2014. 20(7-8): p. 557-563 https://doi.org/10.1080/13803611.2014.997915
- Cone, C., et al., Motivators, barriers, and strategies to improve response rate to student evaluation of teaching. Currents in Pharmacy Teaching and Learning, 2018. 10(12): p. 1543-1549 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cptl.2018.08.020
- Ahmad, T., Teaching evaluation and student response rate. PSU Research Review, 2018. 2(3): p. 206-211 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/PRR-03-2018-0008
- Aoun Bahous, S., et al., Voluntary vs. compulsory student evaluation of clerkships: effect on validity and potential bias. BMC Medical Education, 2018. 18(1): p. 9 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-017-1116-8
- Clemson University Faculty Senate, Jan 11, 2022 - Meeting Report 2022.
- Trumbull, E. and A. Lash, Understanding Formative Assessment: Insights from Learning Theory and Measurement Theory. WestEd. 2013, 2013 https://www.bhamcityschools.org/cms/lib5/AL01001646/Centricity/Domain/131/Understanding%20formative%20assessments%202013.pdf
- Hernandez, R., Discipline-Based Diversity Research in Chemistry. Accounts of Chemical Research, 2023. 56(7): p. 787-797 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.accounts.2c00797
- Esarey, J. and N. Valdes, Unbiased, reliable, and valid student evaluations can still be unfair. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 2020. 45(8): p. 1106-1120 https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2020.1724875
- Kreitzer, R.J. and J. Sweet-Cushman, Evaluating Student Evaluations of Teaching: a Review of Measurement and Equity Bias in SETs and Recommendations for Ethical Reform. Journal of Academic Ethics, 2022. 20(1): p. 73-84 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10805-021-09400-w
- Williamson, A.L. and I.G. Wang, Redesigning a Course Evaluation Instrument: Experience, Practical Guidance, and Lessons Learned. Journal of Management Education, 2023. 47(4): p. 388-416 https://doi.org/10.1177/10525629231167296
- Linse, A.R., Interpreting and using student ratings data: Guidance for faculty serving as administrators and on evaluation committees. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 2017. 54: p. 94-106 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stueduc.2016.12.004
- Cornes, S., et al., When students’ words hurt: 12 tips for helping faculty receive and respond constructively to student evaluations of teaching. Medical Education Online, 2023. 28(1): p. 2154768 https://doi.org/10.1080/10872981.2022.2154768
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Additional Resources
- A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies
- Assess Teaching and Learning
(Carnegie Mellon University) - Classroom and Learning Assessment Techniques
(Iowa State University) - Identifying Pathways for Excellence in Teaching
- Resources for Creating Assessment of Teaching Plans
- Review of Teaching Resources
- Revising Teaching Evaluations at University of Oregon
- Student Evaluations of Teaching
- Student Ratings of Teaching: A Summary of Research and Literature
- USC Faculty Peer Evaluation Guidelines