Resolution on Student Evaluation of Teaching (SIRS)
Date
Background
While there is substantial agreement that student evaluation of teaching can provide very useful information to help faculty members improve their teaching effectiveness, there is also very substantial evidence gathered over the last 40 years that student ratings of a faculty member’s teaching effectiveness are biased based on gender, ethnicity, color, and national origin. There is also substantial evidence that the use of student evaluations of teaching in personnel decisions has a negative effect on the academic rigor and quality of an institution.
A meta study by Holman, Key & Kreitzer (2019) lists 75 research studies on Gender and Racial Bias with Teaching and Evaluations, and their conclusions point to gender and racial bias in student evaluation of teaching. It is available at:https://docs.google.com/document/d/14JiF-fT--F3Qaefjv2jMRFRWUS8TaaT9JjbYke1fgxE/edit
Several recent studies with similar findings received extensive coverage in Inside Higher Education and provide additional evidence of the serious problems with student evaluation of teaching.
- https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/02/27/study-student-evaluations-teaching-are-deeply-flawed
- https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/05/22/most-institutions-say-they-value-teaching-how-they-assess-it-tells-different-story
- https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/01/11/new-analysis-offers-more-evidence-against-student-evaluations-teaching
- https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/03/14/study-says-students-rate-men-more-highly-women-even-when-theyre-teaching-identical
The NBFC, after several years of considering student evaluation of teaching, believes that now is the time for us to work with the administration, other faculty councils, the University Senate, and the Office of Teaching Evaluation and Assessment Research (OTEAR) to define and implement the appropriate role for student evaluation of teaching (SIRS at Rutgers). This role should be to provide information that faculty members can use to improve their teaching effectiveness. There are two guiding principles for defining this role.
- A rating system that is demonstratively biased should not be used in personnel actions, some of which can have life changing consequences for a faculty member. Even if it is only one component in a broad and detailed system of evaluating the teaching effectiveness of a faculty member being considered for promotion or reappointment; seriously biased components should have no place in any Rutgers personnel evaluation.
- The SIRS at Rutgers must be redesigned and improved, so that it provides more meaningful information that can be used to improve teaching effectiveness, but not to make personnel decisions. A number of relatively easy changes should be made. These include (i). All questions that have numerical answers should be eliminated, (ii). Measures should be introduced to achieve participation by a substantial fraction of the class, (iii). Specific questions, some open ended, about specific aspects of teaching should be fashioned, (iv). The format of the survey should continue to allow inclusion of questions created by the instructor being evaluated, (v). Faculty personnel procedures should continue to provide the opportunity for the faculty member being evaluated to include quotations from student evaluations, and (6). Any references to SIRS should be removed from all documents and forms associated with personnel actions.
Resolved:
The NBFC calls on the administration to work with the NBFC, the other faculty councils, the University Senate, and OTEAR to refashion the SIRS so that it provides specific information that faculty members can use to improve their teaching effectiveness and so that it is no longer be used in personnel decisions.