Introduction

The literature on student ratings of teaching (SRTs) is huge – there are literally thousands of papers. Best practices are well-established. This resource center provides information about research-based best practices for departments and faculty who want to improve their SRTs for teaching enhancement and departmental decision-making.

Although this site focuses on student ratings, SRTs should NEVER be the only source of information for evaluating teaching. Appropriately designed, appropriately deployed, and appropriately analyzed student ratings provide reliable, valid data from the students' perspective.  Student ratings of teaching can tell us whether instructors' practices are excellent, acceptable, or unacceptable -- not whether one instructor is "more excellent" or "less acceptable" than another. This is a tall set of boundaries for the use of student ratings data.  Student ratings are necessary, but they are not sufficient. 

Other possible data sources include:

• Peer review
• Teaching portfolios
• Self-assessment
• Faculty development plans
• Student performance on common exams
• Qualitative student input
• Faculty involvement in scholarship of teaching

 

This website has information about the following topics regarding student ratings of teaching:

• Formative vs summative evaluation (pg 2)
• Valid, reliable SRT forms (pg 3)
• SRT question design (pgs 4-6)
• Analysis of SRTs (pgs 7-9)
• Factors that influence SRT results (pgs 10-11)
• SRTs for online courses (pg 12)
• Best practices for deploying SRTs in the classroom (pg 13)
• How to improve your SRT results (pg 14-15)
• Cal Poly Pomona SRT policies (pg 16)
• Annotated bibliography (pg 17)

 

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