Student Evaluations of Teaching: Is There a Relationship between Student Feedback on Teaching and the Student Final Grade?

Darren Pullen,Steven Collette,J - F,Loan Dao

doi:10.22158/fet.v2n3p124

Abstract

The use of Student Evaluations of Teaching (SET) has become widespread practice in higher education despite inconclusive evidence reported in the literature around its validity. Not surprisingly, the question of the validity of SET continues to be a current debate in higher education, pointing to more research to be conducted in this area. The current study contributes to broadening knowledge and understanding on the validity of SET by drawing on an online unit evaluation completed by students (n=2430 out of total student enrolment of N=7757) in one university across three postgraduate education programs over a two-year period, to determine whether there is a relationship between student feedback on teaching and student final unit grade. Findings revealed that students who achieved very high or very low final unit grades did not participate in the SET, while students who achieved Pass or Credit grades partook in the SET, thus providing feedback. This indicates that teaching and evaluating staff need to be aware that a large subset of their students that are not providing feedback to staff to improve the quality of their courses.

Highlights

There is much debate surrounding the validity and utility of Student Evaluations of Teaching (SET) within the current literature
The current study contributes to broadening knowledge and understanding on the validity of SET by drawing on an online unit evaluation completed by students (n=2430 out of total student enrolment of N=7757) in one university across three postgraduate education programs over a two-year period, to determine whether there is a relationship between student feedback on teaching and student final unit grade
For our analysis we investigated two research questions: 1) Does the grade a student receives from the class affect the likelihood that they will respond to the SET? 2) Does the grade affect the type of response made by the student? 1.1 Background Literature—The Use of SET Higher education institutions employ several mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating course satisfaction from the end-user/students-perspective

Summary

Introduction

There is much debate surrounding the validity and utility of Student Evaluations of Teaching (SET) within the current literature. The validity of SET is a highly contested topic in which there is inconclusive evidence around its validity (Spooren et al, 2017), which leads to its utility being questioned for purposes, such as improving teaching and promotion and tenure This situation calls for continued research in the area. This study contributes to the debate on validity of SET by investigating the relationship between student feedback on teaching and the students’ final unit grade. 1.1 Background Literature—The Use of SET Higher education institutions employ several mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating course satisfaction from the end-user/students-perspective. In terms of formal student evaluations of teaching and courses (units) Australian universities employ a standard survey tool that contains the same base questions for use across all their courses. The study conducted by MacNell et al (2015), in which assistant instructors operated under different gender identities in delivering an online class, revealed that “students rated the male identity significantly higher than female identity, regardless of the instructor’s actual gender, demonstrating gender bias” (p. 291)

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