Student Evaluations Of Faculty Research Articles

Examining the effects of early patient care and biomedical science integration on predoctoral dental student competence and confidence.

Our study investigates early experiential learning as a method of curricular integration by allowing students to begin their clinical experience in the first year of the programme, as well as distributing biomedical classes throughout the predoctoral dental school curriculum. This study utilises a quasi-experimental design with two different groups, Standard Curriculum Group and Integrated Curriculum Group, n=87. Data were collected from 2017 to 2021. We found that, on average, it took 608 h less for the participants in an integrated curriculum group to reach clinical competence in comparison to peers who did not experience the same methods of integration in their programme. These data were collected through daily faculty evaluations of students' progression as well as participants' own self-assessment. Our results indicate that participants in the Integrated Curriculum Group also experienced a positive effect on their confidence in their ability to apply the biomedical sciences to patient care. Our findings demonstrate that predoctoral dental programmes may be able to bring about positive outcomes for students' clinical confidence and competence by providing patient care opportunities early in the programme and sequencing the biomedical sciences throughout the curriculum. As such, it appears that early experiential learning may be a viable option for curricular integration that can have a positive effect on both students' confidence in their clinical abilities and their progression to clinical competence.

Lessons learned through the implementation of a rural longitudinal integrated clerkship at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Created in 1995, The University of Missouri School of Medicine's Rural Track Pipeline Program was designed to address physician shortages in rural Missouri through medical student participation in a series of clinical and non-clinical programs over the course of their medical training to influence graduates to choose rural practice. To increase the likelihood of students choosing rural practice, a 46-week longitudinal integrated clerkship (LIC) was implemented at one of nine existing rural training sites. Over the course of the academic year, quantitative and qualitative data was collected to evaluate effectiveness of the curriculum and for quality improvement purposes. Data collection is in progress and includes student evaluation of the clerkship, faculty evaluations of students, student evaluations of faculty, student aggregate clerkship performance, and qualitative data from student and faculty debrief sessions. Based on data collected, changes are being made to the curriculum for the following academic year to enhance the student experience. The LIC will also be offered at an additional rural training site beginning in June of 2022, and then expanded to a third site in June of 2023. As each LIC is unique, our hope is our experience and lessons learned will help others in developing a LIC or improving an existing LIC.

The New Faculty Myth‐busters: Pharmacology Educators and Curators of Information

IntroductionAs we move towards completion of a second year of remote medical pharmacology instruction due to the Covid‐19 global pandemic, osteopathic medical students are also dealing with changes in the USMLE Step‐1 and/or COMLEX Level‐1 with the new Pass/Fail System in 2022. Unlike previous generations, Gen Z are inundated with an abundance of digital information that is readily and freely available, including professional advice from external sources which are not part of the formal curriculum (unspecified social networks, handed down Anki cards, etc.). Misinformation and/or misconstrued or unqualified advice for rapidly mastering pharmacology material over time can lead to development of myths which can be found in comments provided within the student evaluation of faculty. Identifying trends and/or myths in the feedback provided by the students can serve as a meaningful tool for faculty self‐reflection and will also help faculty steer students away from common misinformation as well.MethodsThe aggregate data reported in Medical School Year Two Questionnaire All Schools Summary Reportpublished by the AAMC at the end of the second year of medical education (Years 2014‐2021) was used to develop a construct of trends in medical student usage of YouTube and/or Wikipedia as a source for medical information. Faculty involved in the instruction of pharmacology at the Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine convened to review student feedback of pharmacology faculty collected between 2020 and 2021. Student feedback was examined to identify facts and myths, and these were further categorized to develop approaches to address these concerns in the future.ResultsThe use of Wikipedia has continually declined and the reliance on YouTube has increased as a resource of medical knowledge. Although this was already happening before the pandemic, the shift to other unspecified resources for medical knowledge during remote learning is of concern. In our institution, the review of pharmacology specific feedback demonstrated common myths within the following categories: 1) A lack of consistency in instructor and resources used (formal and informal), 2) perceived misconceptions on what is relevant (basic science versus clinical), 3) expectations for learning only what is perceived to be high yield. Approaches to preventing misperceptions for the future were identified for each category.ConclusionsPharmacology educators are curators of information. Evidence‐based clinical pharmacology information is changing faster than it can be updated in texts and the sanctioned board preparation resources that our students utilize. In the same manner, misinformation can rapidly spread via online forums and/or from handed down outdated resources from past students. Therefore, when pharmacology educators re‐engage medical students in‐person in the classroom, they will also have to more diligently serve as myth busters to combat misinformation and misperceptions.

Evaluating Pangasinan State University Faculty Performance Using Associative Rule Analysis

Evaluating faculty members' performance is a very complex area to study. In addition, predicting the performance of these faculty members is a very difficult and challenging task. However, the core of education is teaching and learning, and teaching-learning works to its fullest when there are effective teachers. Measuring the effectiveness of faculty members is done based on the student evaluation of faculty. This research aims to develop a model to predict the performance of the faculty members using associative rule based on the existing evaluation form used by PSU to evaluate faculty members. The model is designed to utilize the knowledge of text analytics rule capabilities that will provide great support for the decision-making of Pangasinan State University in the Philippines. The result reveals that the term good is still the top one terms occurred for all campuses followed by teaching. The results indicated that teacher/faculty members on all campuses are good teachers. Associating words reveal that "teaching good subject/topic," "explains simply" and other meaningful associated words can be utilized to evaluate the performance of the teacher. The results exposed not only the quantitative values of faculty evaluation it also exposed the qualitative opinion of the students in the performance of their faculty members. This study reveals important aspects of the faculty member's teaching performance in terms of words/association of words that will describe their teaching performance. The results can be utilized in coaching and mentoring faculty members to cope with their weaknesses. The proposed model can be utilized by Pangasinan State University to evaluate the faculty members in terms of their teaching performance by utilizing the comments/opinions of the students.

Student Accountability for Objective Evaluations of Faculty

ABSTRACT Student Evaluation of Faculty (SEF) is an important component of the US educational system and an indispensable tool to keep track of the faculty’s role to make the institution’s academic practice more engaging, objective and effective. SEF also allows institutions to assess faculty performance, future career stability, advancement and promotion. Unfortunately, SEFs generally exempt students from any responsibility in their own academic outcome. The article presents an analysis of a study based on a modified version of the current SEF form utilised by the Bronx Community College. This modified form includes questions about a student’s responsibilities, to measure their accountability making the evaluation more objective using a descriptive research design method. Results confirmed that students must play an active part in the process by assuming their own responsibilities of regularly and timely attending class, increasing study time, utilising the resources of tutoring, faculty office hours, and extended recitation to improve their own outcome and produce a valid faculty evaluation.

Student Accountability for Objective Evaluations of Faculty

Student Evaluation of Faculty (SEF) is an important component of the US educational system and an indispensable tool to keep track of the faculty’s role to make the institution’s academic practice more engaging, objective and effective. SEF also allows institutions to assess faculty performance, future career stability, advancement and promotion. Unfortunately, SEFs generally exempt students from any responsibility in their own academic outcome. The article presents an analysis of a study based on a modified version of the current SEF form utilised by the Bronx Community College. This modified form includes questions about a student’s responsibilities, to measure their accountability making the evaluation more objective using a descriptive research design method. Results confirmed that students must play an active part in the process by assuming their own responsibilities of regularly and timely attending class, increasing study time, utilising the resources of tutoring, faculty office hours, and extended recitation to improve their own outcome and produce a valid evaluation of faculty.

What Skills Do Clinical Evaluators Value Most In Oral Case Presentations?

Phenomenon: Trainees and practicing physicians are judged by the way that they present patients. We therefore invest heavily in teaching students how to do oral case presentations (OCPs), but the relative weights by which different aspects of these complex tasks contributes to an overall evaluation is poorly understood. Approach: We sought to contrast how clinical evaluators assess students’ OCPs and how medical students expect OCPs to be evaluated. Multiple linear regression and correlation matrices assessed how individual components of 3rd-year medical students’ OCPs affect overall faculty assessment of students’ performance using the previously validated Patient Presentation Rating tool. Preclinical medical students were surveyed to determine how they expect their OCPs to be evaluated. Findings: Faculty evaluations of students’ overall organization and descriptions of patients’ situations and vital signs were strongly associated with their overall OCP evaluation. Students believed that describing the patient’s situation, chief complaint, and history of present illness would be highly valued but not organization or vital signs descriptions. Insights: Students and faculty differ about what is important in OCPs. Aligning these perceptions through intentional redesign of curricula and feedback instruments may facilitate teaching clinical communication to students.

Surgeons have an opportunity to improve teaching quality through feedback provision

BackgroundMedical student evaluations of faculty are increasingly incorporated into promotion and tenure decisions, making it imperative to understand learner perceptions of quality teaching. Prior work has shown that students value faculty responsiveness in the form of feedback, but faculty and students differ in their perceptions of what constitutes sufficient feedback. The innovative minute feedback system (MFS) can quantify responsiveness to students' feedback requests. This study assessed how feedback provision via MFS impacts teaching quality scores. Materials and methodsThis retrospective observational study compared average faculty teaching quality scores with faculty's percentage response to student feedback requests via the MFS. The data were generated from the core surgical clerkship for third-year medical students at the University of Michigan Medical School. The relationship between average teaching quality scores and response percentage was assessed by weighted regression analysis. ResultsTwo hundred thirty-seven medical students requested feedback via MFS, and 104 faculty were evaluated on teaching quality. The mean faculty feedback response percentage was 55.78%. The mean teaching quality score was 4.27 on a scale of 1 to 5. Teaching quality score was significantly correlated with response percentage (P < 0.001); for every 10% increase in response percentage, average teaching quality score improved by 0.075. Average teaching quality score was not significantly associated with response time (P = 0.158), gender (P = 0.407), or surgical service (P = 0.498). ConclusionsMedical students consider responsiveness to feedback requests an important component of quality teaching. Furthermore, faculty development focused on efficient and practical feedback strategies may have the added benefit of improving their teaching quality.

Reframing Professionalism: The Virtuous Professional

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. In response to prevalent unprofessional behaviors during the 1990s, the medical school administration at Michigan State University's College of Human Medicine developed a student curriculum for professional development, called "The Virtuous Student Physician." However, as students adopted these professional aspirations and attributes, they noted that faculty members were not being held to the same standards.The medical school's senior associate dean for faculty affairs and development convened a task force to reframe professionalism for all faculty, residents, and students. Our first step was to survey our faculty regarding their awareness of the student professionalism curriculum and their own perceived professional weaknesses. This survey showed the following: most faculty members were aware of "The Virtuous Student Physician" curriculum, that faculty members identified social responsibility as the most difficult attribute to achieve, and that the most difficult behavior identified was working to resolve problem behaviors with colleagues. The task force then developed a new curriculum "The Virtuous Professional: A System of Professional Development for Students, Residents, and Faculty." The task force identified three core virtues (Courage, Humility, and Mercy) and reframed the professional attributes encompassed by these virtues to be aspirational for the entire learning community. The faculty of the College subsequently adopted the new principles and practices, including the use of routine, anonymous student evaluation of faculty professionalism.We are currently collecting data from student evaluations of their clinical faculty members. We plan to use this feedback to guide faculty development and recognize those who model exemplary professionalism as well as to address those who engage in unprofessional behavior.

Analysis of Factors Affecting Student Evaluation of Teaching Effectiveness in Saudi Higher Education: The Case of Jubail University College

The attributes of effective teaching in higher education remains controversial and has never been conclusive. The purpose of this study is to determine the factors affecting the students’ perceptions of teaching effectiveness, and how the instructor and course attributes can significantly influence teaching effectiveness as measured by students in course evaluation surveys. The study analyzed 3,798 student evaluations of faculty at Jubail University College using factor analysis to find out the factors loading and average extract variance value. The study predicted that there is a significant relationship between the five dimensions of teaching and students’ ratings of teaching effectiveness (i.e. instructor’s personality, knowledge, teaching ability, marking and grading policy, and course attributes and learning outcomes). The findings support the hypothesis that there is a significant relationship between effective teaching dimensions and students ratings. The study contributes to the body of literature on evaluation of teaching effectiveness in Saudi higher education.

Students Evaluation of Faculty

This study aimed to investigate how students evaluate their faculty and the effect of gender, expected grade, and college on students’ evaluation. The study sample consisted of 5291 students from Tafila Technical University Faculty evaluation scale was used to collect data. The results indicated that student evaluation of faculty was high (mean = 4.14, S.D. = 0.79) and there were statistically significant differences in students’ evaluation attributed to students’ gender, college and expected grade in the course.

Evaluating Engagement Online

Abstract. Past experimental research has shown that women are penalized with harsh evaluations when they violate gender prescriptions to be nurturing and helpful. Instructor participation in an asynchronous online discussion forum and end-of-class evaluation data from 360 courses was used to test the hypothesis that students would penalize female, but not male, online instructors based on their classroom engagement. Results showed a penalties effect in student ratings for low-participating female, but not male, instructors in gender-balanced courses. The results demonstrate the differential impact of instructor engagement on male and female evaluations, shedding light on when and why gender bias is found in student evaluations. Implications for the use of student evaluations of faculty are discussed.

The relationship between assessment methods and self-directed learning readiness in medical education.

Objectives This research explored the assessment of self-directed learning readiness within the comprehensive evaluation of medical students’ knowledge and skills and the extent to which several variables predicted participants’ self-directed learning readiness prior to their graduation. Methods Five metrics for evaluating medical students were considered in a multiple regression analysis. Fourth-year medical students at a competitive US medical school received an informed consent and an online survey. Participants voluntarily completed a self-directed learning readiness scale that assessed four subsets of self-directed learning readiness and consented to the release of their academic records. Results The assortment of metrics considered in this study only vaguely captured students’ self-directedness. The strongest predictors were faculty evaluations of students’ performance on clerkship rotations. Specific clerkship grades were mildly predictive of three subscales. The Pediatrics clerkship modestly predicted critical self-evaluation (r=-.30, p=.01) and the Psychiatry clerkship mildly predicted learning self-efficacy (r =-.30, p=.01), while the Junior Surgery clerkship nominally correlated with participants’ effective organization for learning (r=.21, p=.05). Other metrics examined did not contribute to predicting participants’ readiness for self-directed learning. Conclusions Given individual differences among participants for the variables considered, no combination of students’ grades and/or test scores overwhelmingly predicted their aptitude for self-directed learning. Considering the importance of fostering medical students’ self-directed learning skills, schools need a reliable and pragmatic approach to measure them. This data analysis, however, offered no clear-cut way of documenting students’ self-directed learning readiness based on the evaluation metrics included.

An Analysis of Grades, Class Level and Faculty Evaluation Scores in the United Arab Emirates

&lt;p class="apa"&gt;This study examined the results of a student evaluation of faculty against the grades awarded and the level of the course for a higher education institution in the United Arab Emirates. The purpose of the study was to determine if the grades awarded in the course and/or level of the course impacted the evaluation scores awarded to the faculty member. The study utilized a 25-question student perception survey coupling course results with the overall course grade point average (GPA) and the course level. All courses were undergraduate. Descriptives for the responses were obtained prior to conducting a factor analysis for the purposes of dimension reduction. The analysis included 184 course pairings. The data set was examined to verify satisfaction of assumptions appropriate for factor analysis. Reliability analysis yielded a Chronbach’s alpha of 0.974. The factor analysis identified three underlying factors accounting for 80.07% of the variance. These three factors were identified as (1) overall perception of instruction, (2) the relationship of the grade and course level and (3) course management. Results of the study did not indicate that the grades given in a class nor the level of the course significantly affected the evaluations provided by the students. Grades and the level of the course were found to align. Student achievement in the course was also found to relate to the student’s perception of fair treatment by the faculty member.&lt;/p&gt;

Comparison of two formats for student evaluation of teacher effectiveness.

Context:Student evaluation of faculty is an essential part of the academic process. The study was designed to compare two formats of student evaluation of teachers (SETs) with a view to determine the method with minimum bias.Aims:To compare student ratings of teacher effectiveness obtained from two different SET formats and determine factors contributing to the student bias.Materials and Methods:Faculty members of first professional were evaluated by MBBS students using a SET-I questionnaire already in use. Faculty perceived types of bias were documented using a separate semi-structured questionnaire. Based on this, a second SET-II questionnaire with Likert scale was designed and filled out by the same students as before. The faculty was apprised of the scores granted to them, and their acceptance of the preferred SET format was determined with the help of another questionnaire.Results:Ratings obtained from 71 students using both the SET-I and SET-II formats showed no difference. However, the level of students satisfaction with teacher effectiveness, compared with the total teacher score, indicated that when a score of the faculty was below 50%, the level of students satisfaction reduced considerably. The major causes of perceived negative bias identified were strictness, seniority, gender, classes taken, less interest in the subject, and lower student grades. SET-II was preferred by faculty but didn′t eliminate all bias factors.Conclusions:Although it was not possible to remove all causes of bias from the modified student questionnaire, the faculty perception of bias affecting the students rating seems to be largely ungrounded as there was no difference between the scores obtained.

Student faculty evaluation (SFE) at Jordanian universities: a student perspective

This study is the first to address student evaluation of faculty members (SFE) from a student perspective at a major Jordanian public university using a comprehensive (71-item) questionnaire administered to 620 undergraduates. Addressed are students’ perceptions of the SFE process in terms of: (a) their paper-based vs. online-format preferences; (b) their beliefs about the process; (c) the standards they adopt in the evaluation; (d) the fruitfulness of SFE outcomes; and (e) their opinions about the evaluation instruments currently used at their institutions. It also explores whether students’ beliefs vary according to their gender, GPA and college (Educational Sciences vs. Sciences). The results reveal that most students prefer online evaluation, adopt academic rather than interpersonal criteria in their evaluation, have a low level of satisfaction with the impact of previous evaluations on faculty teaching behaviours and the evaluation instruments used at their institution. Additionally, the findings suggest that gender has a less influential role in shaping students’ beliefs about the SFE process compared to their college or GPA. The findings of this study and their implications are very useful pointers for faculty and higher education administrators, faculty members and students towards further improvement at higher education institutions.

Pilot of peer assessment within experiential teaching and learning

ObjectivesThe objectives of this study were as follows: (1) to pilot test an instrument for peer assessment of experiential teaching, (2) to compare peer evaluations from faculty with student evaluations of their preceptor (faculty), and (3) to determine the impact of qualitative, formative peer assessment on faculty’s experiential teaching. MethodsFaculty at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Pharmacy implemented a new peer assessment instrument focused on assessing experiential teaching. For eleven quantitative evaluation questions, inter-rater reliability was compared between faculty and student assessments. Student evaluations from 2003–2004 and 2010–2011 were compared to determine if preceptor performance improved. ResultsEight faculty members participated in this pilot. Comparing peer evaluations and student evaluations of faculty, a median intraclass correlation of 0.85 suggested redundancy. Five of eight faculty members remained seven years later, and three of five reported this assessment helpful and reported making changes to their teaching. Among these faculty members, preceptor performance improvements appeared strongest. ConclusionA peer assessment of experiential teaching was developed and implemented. Aside from evaluation, formative peer assessment seemed important in fostering feedback for faculty in their development.

The medium is the message: Comparing paper-based and web-based course evaluation modalities

• Online student evaluations are almost always lower than in class evaluations. • Differences between online and in class evaluations do not vary with class level. • Differences between online and in class evaluations do not vary with response rate. • Differences between course evaluation methods are larger for poorly received classes. An increasing number of universities have moved student evaluation of faculty and courses out of the classroom, where it had resided for many years, and onto the web. The increased efficiency of the web-based administrative modality of these instruments seems self-apparent. However, whether the measures obtained using the new modality are the same as the old modality is unclear. This paper compares the results of questionnaires administered on the web with those collected from the same students while they were in class. Data from 181 course offerings over seven terms at one university were utilized. Significantly lower evaluation scores for both the instructor and the course are produced when a web-based modality is used. In general, these results did not vary for courses at different levels of matriculation or at different levels of student participation. However, the magnitude of modality differences varied between highly rated and poorly rated courses. Implications for faculty evaluation are offered.

Finding the Right Fit: Assessing the Impact of Traditional v. Large Lecture/Small Lab Course Formats on a General Education Course

This study explores alternative approaches for teaching general education courses burdened with serving extremely large enrollments. It compares the effectiveness of a self-contained course in which each course section is taught by one instructor to a large lecture/small lab format in which all course enrollees attend one large lecture section and then are divided into several small lab sections for more intensive training experiences. The study uses the Introduction to Human Communication course at the authors’ university. Two hundred and seventy-five students enrolled in nine large lecture/small lab sections of the course and two hundred and fifteen students enrolled in eight self-contained sections were used for this study. Comparisons were made of cognitive learning outcomes, affective learning outcomes, communication apprehension outcomes, and student evaluations of faculty. Cognitive learning outcomes indicated that students in the self-contained format did better on their first speeches and that those in the large lecture/small lab format did better on their final speech and improved more rapidly from their first to last speech. Little difference was found in level of affective learning or reduction in student apprehension. Students in both sections decreased in communication apprehension over the course of the semester. The large lecture/small lab format appeared to depress teaching evaluations.

Improving teaching on an inpatient pediatrics service: a retrospective analysis of a program change

BackgroundThe traditional role of the faculty inpatient attending providing clinical care and effectively teaching residents and medical students is threatened by increasing documentation requirements, pressures to increase clinical productivity, and insufficient funding available for medical education. In order to sustain and improve clinical education on a general pediatric inpatient service, we instituted a comprehensive program change. Our program consisted of creating detailed job descriptions, setting clear expectations, and providing salary support for faculty inpatient attending physicians serving in clinical and educational roles. This study was aimed at assessing the impact of this program change on the learners’ perceptions of their faculty attending physicians and learners’ experiences on the inpatient rotations.MethodsWe analyzed resident and medical student electronic evaluations of both clinical and teaching faculty attending physician characteristics, as well as resident evaluations of an inpatient rotation experience. We compared the proportions of “superior” ratings versus all other ratings prior to the educational intervention (2005–2006, baseline) with the two subsequent years post intervention (2006–2007, year 1; 2007–2008, year 2). We also compared medical student scores on a comprehensive National Board of Medical Examiners clinical subject examination pre and post intervention.ResultsWhen compared to the baseline year, pediatric residents were more likely to rate as superior the quality of didactic teaching (OR=1.7 [1.0-2.8] year 1; OR=2.0 [1.1-3.5] year 2) and attendings’ appeal as a role model (OR=1.9 [1.1-3.3] year 2). Residents were also more likely to rate as superior the quality of feedback and evaluation they received from the attending (OR=2.1 [1.2-3.7] year 1; OR=3.9 [2.2-7.1] year 2). Similar improvements were also noted in medical student evaluations of faculty attendings. Most notably, medical students were significantly more likely to rate feedback on their data gathering and physical examination skills as superior (OR=4.2 [2.0-8.6] year 1; OR=6.4 [3.0-13.6] year 2).ConclusionsA comprehensive program which includes clear role descriptions along with faculty expectations, as well as salary support for faculty in clinical and educational roles, can improve resident and medical student experiences on a general pediatric inpatient service. The authors provide sufficient detail to replicate this program to other settings.