Research

Shared Governance and Faculty Input

In response to the 2018 Faculty Development and Evaluation Survey, the Faculty Development and Evaluation Shared Governance Committee (FDEC) formed a Student Evaluation of Courses Work Group in 2020 to develop recommendations for the revision of ACC’s Student Evaluation of Courses. The subsequent Workgroup and Think Tanks addressed the design, use, and which teaching areas (dimensions) should be included to provide actionable information. The Workgroup continued in Fall 2023 with new members.

Research

Internal and external research was conducted to determine the proposed revisions. The Faculty Evaluation Work Group leaders interviewed 7 institutions and researched an additional three to understand the design and use of their student course evaluations.  The institutions interviewed were Baltimore College, City Colleges of Chicago, Valencia College, Tarrant Community College, Eastern Shore Community College, Reynolds Community College, and Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. Additionally, a website reviews of student course evaluations and evaluation were completed for St. Petersburg College, University of Oregon and the University of Southern California, University of Colorado at Boulder, University of Kansas Center for Teaching Excellence Benchmarks for Teaching Effectiveness, and TEval (Transforming Higher Education -Multidimensional Evaluation of Teaching).

In April 2021 TLED hosted an Open Forum on Faculty Evaluation. The event keynote was Dr. Philip Stark, professor of Statistics, associate dean in the Division of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, and interim regional associate dean for the College of Chemistry and Division of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at University of California-Berkeley. Dr. Stark is renowned for his research on making course evaluations actionable and equitable and presented a growing body of research that shows that traditional student course evaluations are not accurately reflecting the teaching skills of professors. In fact, the data suggests that bias exists against women and people of color. A copy of Dr. Stark’s keynote can be found here. 

The timeline includes additional information about steps taken to obtain additional data through faculty surveys, student focus groups, and student surveys.