NO MORE SURVEYS: Researchers at Oregon State University are studying teaching evaluations, and it turns out year-end questionnaires alone don’t provide meaningful data on their teaching practice. OSU’s study, published in the Journal of Higher Education Management, finds STEM faculty at large research universities prefer using their own evaluation systems, combining quantitative and qualitative feedback to inform their teaching throughout the course.
The National Science Foundation funded the research and results suggest major challenges to faculty using evaluations include low student participation, feedback arriving too late or responses being too vague. OSU researchers plan to further study what moves some faculty over others to develop their own evaluation systems.
