Journal of Research in Innovative Teaching - National University

explication of the principles and foundation for student evaluations in Richardson (2005),
Huitt (1995), and Stockham and Amann (1994). The literature is consistent on the
following points:
1. Learning is an active process and student involvement is an integral part of
that process.
2. Student characteristics and behaviors impact perception of and interaction
with the teacher.
3. Teachers view their teaching with regard to the paradigms of their students in
order to facilitate change and build for growth.
4. Teachers recognize that students can make important contributions to the
teaching/learning process.
5. The teaching/learning process is dynamic and should change over time and
with context.
It follows from these principles that teaching and learning involve an interaction
between the instructor and students: Student participation and input may serve as
valuable feedback for the instructors, and instructors’ feedback to students contributes to
student growth and development. “Student evaluations can be an important measure of
teacher behaviors and teaching methods when they are related to a product or output
measure of student learning and growth” (Gordon, 2001, 5). Student feedback is a critical
tool for continuous professional development by faculty and improvement of their
teaching. Gordon also writes, “Students need not be silent partners in the improvement of
teaching in higher education. In actively seeking students' responses to instruction,
colleges and universities are sending the important message that they honor and support
the teaching-learning process” (p. 4).
The benefits of student evaluations are numerous. First, they are easy and
inexpensive to administer. Second, they give an impression of objectivity (they produce a
quantitative value) in comparison with more “subjective” measures, such as unsolicited
letters or comments by outside observers. Third, there are few alternatives to student
evaluations if one wants to assess teaching effectiveness (Huemer, 1990).
Student evaluations of their professors may have a twofold purpose (see Reasons
to Adopt, 2006): (1) they are used for formative evaluations (i.e., enable teachers to
improve their teaching and bring certain changes into their classes), and (2) they supply
summative evaluations (i.e., provide evidence for professors’ achievements for future
promotion and evaluation). Student evaluations seem to meet these two purposes well
because researchers tend to agree that student evaluations are highly reliable (i.e.,
students are consistent in their ratings of instructors) and valid (i.e., student ratings
correlate positively with other measures of teaching effectiveness). Cashin (1990)
concludes that “student ratings tend to be statistically reliable, valid, and relatively free
from bias, probably more so than any other data used for faculty evaluation” (p. 6). The
validity of student evaluations has been widely discussed, and Gordon (2001) suggests
evaluations can be affected by student prior subject interest, workload difficulty,
expected grade, reason for taking course, class level, overall graded point average, year in
school, course enrollment, and teacher rank. A common technique for assessing validity
is to demonstrate that course ratings correlate with student performance, and studies show
174