Achieving leadership in chosen areas of teaching, research and extension by delivering superior value to all its constituencies, and applying all the times highest professional and ethical standards is generally the vision of the universities operating in the contemporary world settings. To achieve this vision, Academic Leaders/Administrators would need to constantly seek answers to the following questions:
The bottom line for all the above lies in ‘Learning and Growth’, and to achieve the same, it requires to continually ask ourselves a question “Are We Maintaining Our Ability to Change and Improve?” This calls for having an ‘Institutional Effectiveness Mechanism’ in place which is a systematic, explicit, and documented process of measuring performance against the vision/mission in all aspects of an institution. One such aspect is the assessment of quality of teaching by the students. In view of NAAC requirement, evaluation of teaching has become a regular feature in universities in the country. But this has been a controversial subject among the teaching community. There are arguments for and against the evaluation of teaching by the students. It is in view of this fact that the universities generally conduct evaluation of teaching by the students on regular basis just to meet the requirement set by NAAC for accreditation rather than using it as a means to foster improvements in the teaching-learning process. However, the only purpose of NAAC to require universities to have a robust evaluation mechanism of teaching by the students is to use it for seeking improvements in teaching-learning process. In the western world, evaluation of teaching by the students is an integral part of the governance in the colleges and universities.
Evaluation of teaching is simply a means to seek feedback from the students about the quality of teaching but there are some in the teaching fraternity who question its authenticity while others raise questions about the ability and bias on the part of students. It is being argued by many that the students lack maturity and the ability to judge the performance of their teachers very reliably. The bias of the students is also being reasoned out for unreliable judgment of the students. It is also being claimed that it is being misused by students by giving high rating to those who give good grades and low rating to those who are very strict, disciplinarians, and who teach thoroughly & give grades purely on the basis of their performances. Gender of the teachers is also claimed to influence the rating of teachers by students. Research has revealed that the teachers physical appearance, gender and age are also found to have effected rating of teaching by students (Buck & Tiene, 1989; Sohar Preston et. al, 2016). Younger faculty members were found to receive higher rating (Borint et al, 2016) while more senior faculty received lower ratings (Clayson, 1999). Sometimes students look for easy teachers to pass a subject (Felton et al, 2004), however, research has shown that most of the students tend to search for competent teachers (Feldman, 1984) and credible faculty members (Patton, 1999), thus these findings disapproves the fallacy that easy teachers receive higher ratings. Students frankly praises instructors for their friendly humorous manner in the classroom but if their teaching is not well organised and stimulating for effective learning, students equally frankly criticised them in those areas (Aleamoni, 1981).
Research evidence on the authenticity of evaluation of teaching by the students is conflicting. There may be some merit in the objections raised against the reliability of the evaluation, as such these apprehensions cannot be rejected altogether. But the other side of the story is that since the core function of HEIs remains teaching and learning, therefore, to perform this core activity, it becomes all the more important to assess the quality of teaching. The only way to assess the quality of teaching is by evaluating its effectiveness and the only source to such a useful information is students as they are the real consumers of knowledge who experience the conduct of a teacher, his or her motivation and ability to transfer the knowledge and the extent of knowledge he or she possesses. It is actually a very useful source of feedback from students to the teacher about his teaching etc. thus helps to synergise the teacher-learning process to achieve better learning of students. It also ensures greater accountability in the system with a net outcome of improved teaching. But to minimise the possibility of its misuse by students and to ensure its reliability and validity, it will all the more important to take every care in the designing of instrument for data collection; procedures used for its administration, tools and techniques used to analyse the data and the way the final results are interpreted and reported.
Much depends on how well the instrument for data collection has been designed. Unfortunately, it has been observed that in our set-up not much attention is being given to the process of designing an instrument. It is the job of an expert but surprisingly amateurs have been found involved to perform this crucial job. If one makes an analysis of the instruments that are in use in our universities, it becomes amply clear that the instruments are deficient in many respects. For example it does not become clear what kind of attributes of a teachers are being attempted to be assessed. It is also found that the statements in the instrument either does not clearly signify the attribute for which intended or are dichotomous. Besides, the questions/ statements are found not being formulated in a manner that are easy to understand, free from information bias, and appropriate to the level of education. To quantify the qualitative phenomena, Likert type scale is being generally used, but surprisingly without any benchmarking of the final results which renders the whole process meaningless.
Keeping in view the central role of the instrument in truly assessing the effectiveness of teaching, due care needs to be given in designing an instrument. Towards this goal, the first step should be to know what are the specific objectives of the assessment. The assessment of teaching effectiveness generally aims to assess ‘The Teacher’ i.e. his attitude and enthusiasm, and subject knowledge; ‘The Teaching Process and Ability’; and Learning Outcomes. Therefore, the instrument should contain the statements measuring the effectiveness of these aspects. A good questionnaire is one which is organised and worded to encourage respondents to provide accurate, unbiased and complete information. Besides questions/ statements should be worded in a manner that are easily understood, and prompts students to answer. Once the instrument has been designed, its reliability and validity needs to be properly checked. Therefore, it is not everybody’s domain but a job of specialists only. Number of well designed instruments are readily available, therefore, it would be more appropriate to adopt the one which suits to ones requirements whose reliability and validity already stands tested.
Procedures for the administration of the instrument and the interpretation of final results are equally important to achieve the intended outcomes of the evaluation. Presently, it is the DIQA which conducts the survey and analysis’s the data which is then communicated to the School Deans for its communication to the concerned faculty members. It is a highly sensitive exercise as the honour and dignity of faculty members is directly connected to it, therefore, due care need to be taken to ensure confidentiality. Now online evaluation is being used, therefore, the logistics needed are minimal, as such it would be quite manageable for the offices of School Deans to handle the whole process. But it would be essential for the Deans to keep records pertaining to the assessment in the personal custody for the reasons of confidentiality. Besides, It would be highly appropriate to conduct assessment at the end of each semester, course-wise rather than at the end of the year, not course-wise as the practice goes currently.
The most serious flaw with the current process is that there is no benchmarking of the final scores to conclude about the satisfactory or unsatisfactory performance which in turn renders the whole process meaningless. Generally on five point likert type scale, a score of 3 & above is considered satisfactory which contrarily means a score of less than 3 is considered unsatisfactory. But it is widely accepted that the minimum benchmark for satisfactory performance depends upon the size of a class. In a class of 15-25, 25-40 and 40 & above 80%, 70% and 60% score respectively on a five point scale is considered satisfactory. Besides, there is a need to have a detailed interpretation of the final scores by differentiating the performance on the basis of score intervals into Outstanding, Excellent, Quite Satisfactory, Satisfactory, Unsatisfactory, Quite Unsatisfactory, Poor and Very Poor. Such interpretation is needed to precisely differentiate performances so as to clearly communicate to teachers where they stands. Without such communication, the purpose of conducting the much controversial evaluation will fail to serve the purposes fully. Given the inherent risks in the evaluation, it should be used to seek improvements in the performance of faculty members. Therefore teachers with:
- outstanding & excellent performance should be applauded by giving a “Certificate of Appreciation”;
- quite satisfactory & satisfactory performance should be appreciated but reminded of making an effort to improve to the next higher grade/level;
- unsatisfactory and poor performers’ should be called by the Dean to guide and advise them for making improvements confidentiality, however, at the same time, they should be cautioned to improve to avoid getting listed in the’Grey List’ or loose annual increments or promotion to the next higher level;
- poor and very poor performance should be removed from the responsibility of teaching and send to attend faculty development programmes or least given a limited time period to improve with stoppage of annual increments and promotions to the next higher level until they improve, however, before making any such prescription, it would be highly needed that such faculty members be given an opportunity to explain their position.
Final Word:
There is no doubt about certain inherent risks involved in the evaluation of teaching by the students as stated above, but the hard reality is that there is no other alternative to this much needed feedback system. So contemporary higher educational institutions will have to embrace this system to improve quality of teaching but take all the necessary steps to try to keep the risks associated with this system under control. Towards this goal, only those students should be allowed to participate in the evaluation process who have 75% or above attendance. It is also that the evaluation results should be used in conjunction with the peers evaluation and self evaluation. Added to it, the final conclusions about the performance of a teacher should not be merely based on the results of a single evaluation but on the basis of a series of evaluations, a maximum of three. Besides, while analysing the data, each aspect of a teacher should be thoroughly and scientifically analysed. Like in the rest of the world, not only average score obtained along with standard deviation should be communicated but both, the average score and the scores of each question asked in the questionnaire should be communicated. This will enable faculty members to know in which aspect he or she is doing well or badly, which in turn will enable the teacher to focus on weaker aspects for making improvements. The widely acknowledged recommendation has been that the teacher himself or herself should proactively seek feedback informally to know whether the teaching and learning synergises well so to make timely adjustments to seek better results.
Author is Professor in the Dept. of Commerce , University of Kashmir