Symposium: Student Evaluation of Teaching The following five papers are representative of those presented a t the Symposium on Student Evaluation of Teaching sponsored by the Division of Chemical Education at the 165th National Meeting of the ACS in Dallas in April 1973. Professor B. R. Sebring of the University of Wisconsin a t Milwaukee was chairman of the symposium.
B. R. Siebring and M. E. Schaff University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201
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A Survey of the Literature Concerning Student Evaluation of Teaching
The topic of student evaluations of instruction and professors has recently been the suhject of heated discussion in meetings of chemistry departments across the country. Because of this widespread interest and concern about student evaluations, the Committee on Teaching of the Division of Chemical Education sponsored the symposium on "Evaluation of Instructors and Courses via Student Questionnaires." It seemed reasonable in attacking this controversial suhject that we first examine the puhlished literature; this we have done. We do not intend to use much space in reviewing the literature; anyone can do this at his leisure and draw his own conclusions. However, a few remarks are in order. First, we were amazed at the amount of material published on this suhject. The Education Index lists 143 studies puhlished in the last decade alone on rating instruction and professors. Faced with this wealth of material, we soon limited ourselves to reviews ( I ) and the most recent publications. However, we would caution against the exclusive use of review papers. We s w n realized that writers of reviews are prejudiced in their selection of the papers to which they refer. Furthermore, we are somewhat skeptical of the original investigations. It is our impression that psychologists, educational psychologists, and educationists (most authors of these papers were in one of these categories) nearly always concluded that a new procedure, method, or device was preferable to the established procedure, method, or device. That is, if they were comparing an experimental method of evaluation with an established one, their conclusion nearly always favored the experimental'method. Most investigators concluded that student ratings provide valuable-information if wisely used, hut usually failed to define "wisely" very clearly. However, there are some notable exceptions. Recently Science puhlished a study which concluded that students rate most highly instructors from whom they learn the least (2). In many ways there is little agreement on the suhject; one could ~ r o h a h l vfind something in mint to s u ~ ~ oalrt most any point of view. For example,-let us conscder the question of the use to which student evaluations should be put. McKeachie suggests that they might be used administratively along with other information to appraise and improve teaching effectiveness (Ic). However, Travers concludes that "The overwhelming weight of evidence, it is hoped, will prevent colleges from adopting ratings of 150 / Journal of Chemical Education
facultv bv facultv. or of facultv hv students. for assessina of the effect teaching kffectivGess~~ (3). 0; t6e of the size of classes on teachina, it seems that a t BrookI.yn College the size of the rlass~haino apparent effect on the student ratings of teaching effectiveness (4,. However, at Grinnell Colleee 151 , , and at Purdue Universitv . 161 . . the size of classes has been found to be an important factor in determining the rating: the larger the class, the lower the rating. ~~
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The results of investigations on the effect of research productivity of the professor on his teaching effectiveness are also inconclusive. At Tufts University professors who publish and receive government support for research are judged to he more effective teachers (7). However, a t Purdue. research activitv of the ~rofessoramears to have no .. relationship to teaching effectLeness (5). Still another source of contention is the relationship of students' grades in a course to their evaluation of t h e instructor. Several studies have concluded that there is no appreciable relationship between course grades and teacher evaluation by the students (8). Recently, however, it was reported in School and Society that ". . . there is a relationship of course grades and teacher evaluations for some instructors in some classes . . ." (9). Still more recently an article in Educational and Psychological Measurements was even more positive. The authors "found strong and consistent biases in both instructor and course ratings which can he traced to (a) the grade the student expects to receive, and (h) the discrepancy between the student's expected grade and his GPA" (10). What has been reported so far from the literature has involved very little input from chemists. What do chemists say about the evaluation of teaching effectiveness? They have very little to say in print. Only two articles dealing with the evaluation of instruction could be found in the entire Journal of Chemical Education. One article is a hrief summarv of a renort Dresented at the recent Mount Holyoke ~dnferencei l l ) . 'The other, puhlished in 1950. described a method of student evaluation at Louisiana s t a t e University (12). This System of evaluation, which is still in use today, was estahlished in the 1944-45 school year by the Dean of the College of Chemistry and Physics. The fact that a system of student evaluations devised by chemists and physicists has persisted continuously in this institution for over a quarter of a century is pos-
itive evidence that student evaluation of instruction can be useful. On the other hand, we read the following, written by Joel H. Hildebrand, one of the most respected teachers of chemistry of our time, in the ~ u l l e t i n - o fthe American Association of University Professors (13) The University is often urged to adopt a system of rating teachers by means of questionnaires prepared by someone other than the instructor in charge of the class and answered anonymously by students. The stated purposes are to assist teachers in selfappraisal and the president in recognizing and rewarding teaching ability. It is proper ta ask, however, whether a system of student questionnaires offers the proper means for achieving these ends. How, we may ask, may it be expected to affect the teacher himself? We may expect that a capable, conscientious teacher, seeking to establish a cordial relation with his class, will resent the intrusion of an outsider who presumes to question his competence or fairness. But how about the dull, uninspiring teacher? The proposal seems to assume that dullness is voluntary; that a teacher who, during the course of years, has been blind to the evidence of boredom in the faces before him will suddenly become brilliant upon learning his "teaching index." Any such optimism is most naive. But, granting the existence of such teachers, what can we do about them? The questionnaire proposes to furnish "evidence" to the President on the basis of which they may he reprimanded or dismissed. But what is the nature of the evidence? It is anonymous and hence irresponsible, inadmissible in any just procedure; it is all immature, all incompetent regarding the subject; some of it is colored by desire to shift responsibility for the student's own shortcomings; some of it confuses teaching with entertainment or kindness of heart; it is gathered in such a way as to foster discontent. Since this comment by Professor Hildebrand was published 28 years ago, it seemed reasonable to inquire whether Professor Hildebrand's views had changed. In a recent letter (14) in reply to my inquiry Professor Hilde-
brand assured me that his opinions about anonymous student questionnaires for evaluating professorial teaching remain substantially as stated above. It is difficult to judge trends in the literature. However, it appeared to us that recent papers are more likelv to be critical of student evaluationso~judgethat other methods of evaluation are equally as effective. Also, i t seemed to us that favorable conclusions were most likely to be reported by social scientists and educationists while natural scientists often were critical of student evaluations. These last three articles constitute the entire body of published material on this subject written by chemists, and two of them were published more than 20 years ago. It seems reasonable to ask what chemists today think about evaluation of instruction. This is covered by the following paper. Literature Cited (a) Ehle. K. E.."The Recognition and Evaluation of Teaching," Salt Lake City. Utah: Pmieet to lmpmve College Teaching. American Association of University Pmfeasors. 1971: 1hl Charlier, P. 8.. imp mu in^ Coll, and Univ T a c h . . Is, 265 e , J., Bull. p m e r ABBOC.Uniu Profs.. 55. 0 9 11969): (dl (19701; ( 4 M e K ~ ~ e h i W. Rowland. R., lmpmuing Coll. and Univ Teoch.. IS. IS3 11970): (el Slohin, D. Y., and Nichols. D. G.. lmpmuing Coil. and Uniu Teach., 17. 244 (19691: 10 Costin. F..Gleenough, W.T.. andMenges.R.J..Rec. Ed. Reg, 41.511 (1971). (21 Rodin, M., and Rodin. B.. Scionca. I??, 1164 (19721. 13) Traven. R.M. W . . J High. Ed.. 21.11 119501. (4) Goodhsrtz, A. S., SchoolondSocrefy, 68.315 119481. C . F . Ed. Psych. M-ure. 16.291 119551. (5) L ~ ~ P I I . G . DandHaner, ., 16) MeDaniel, E., and Feldhuaen, J . F.. Todqy'b Ed., 60.27 (19711. 17) Bredor. J. B..Science. IM. 164 119681. 18) la) Runsel. H, E.."Interrelations of soma indic- of instructor Effecfiveners." Unpublished doctoral diswrtslion. Univeraiiy of Pittiburah, 1951; Ihl Voeks. V. W.. end French. G. M., J. Hqh. M., 31.330119601: 1c)"AStudyofStudentEvsluafions ofinstruction." Unouhlished report. University of CaliforniiiDaviii 1971. (91 Woige1.R. G., Oefting. E. R.. andTasto. D. L.,SchoolondSoriety, 99,M(19111. 1 Y l Bsurell, R. B..and Msgwn, J.. E d u c o t i o ~ land PaycholoRicolMearuremmts, 32,
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Hildebrand, J . H.. private communication
Volume 51, Number 3,March 1974
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