The questions should be relevant. The sample size needs to be statistically valid. When the students are given the option to fill out an evaluation I have found that you only get the students who really, really liked the professor or more often those who had an axe to grind with the professor. One time on a promotion & tenure, the committee was arguing about the promotion of an assistant professor. A total of three students had filled out the evaluation. One really liked her. One hated her and one was in the middle. The chair was trying to make some analysis on the basis of numbers alone until it was pointed out that there were only 3 responses out of 30 students in the class.

At the University of Cape Town, we ask the students to fill out an evaluation at the end of each course. The evaluation asks questions about the course material as well as the lecturer's teaching, such as whether the notes/textbooks were appropriate, whether the equipment/software used was sufficient for the task, whether constructive feedback was given on assignments, whether the lecturer knew his/her subject material well and communicated effectively and passionately, etc. The students fill in the questionnaires online and anonymously, and we get some very helpful feedback (and some not so helpful). Regarding accountability, the scores that the questionnaire generates are used in the ad hominem promotions process. This makes it in the lecturers' best interests to do a good job with their teaching!

Mr. Tao,

There is a lack of any ''practical puzzle''.

There is: ''...a good quality of the teachning is achieved on the base on novelty in the research achievements and scientific innovation''. On this base there are a set of quantitative criteria for attestation of the staff in the Higher Educational Systems worldwide, which include: number of publications, number of citations, particupation in conferences, project activity, organization and participation in schools, number of monographs, number of books, number of textbooks, own lecture notes, etc., etc., etc.

All these quantitative criteria are well-known and in this context the so-called autonomy in the Higher Education, in fact, represents a very disperse term. Because of on the one hand there is autonomy, which means self-organization and self-governance, on the other hand, however, this authonomy is strictly restricted within the framework of the mentioned above quantitative criteria.

In addition, I should mention that the discipline 'Management of Higher Education' or the so-called 'Administration' is from 1960s of the last century. On the contrary the oldest University in Europa is from 1090...Even there are claims that the oldest University in Europa is from 960....

The compromise between the two lies in whether a lecturer or professor is abiding by the principles of quality, which makes the concept of autonomy obsolete if it means doing whatever you want in your classroom. One is not autonomous if one works in a system. But this does not threaten your dignity. If you are abiding by quality in an accredited system of education, this also may include something known as peer observation of teaching as a way of accountability to employers, including ministries of education.

Quality of teaching accountable? If we judge, does this act, limit or destroy true learning? It is up to you to decide but the literature suggest yes. Whether it is students being judged by their teachers or vice versa. The real costs of systems of evaluation are staggering. To be sure there is a place for exams. There are enough studies that show that most people enjoy learning from the tests and especially from any form of feedback, AI or human. However, marking from tests or subjective judging, destroys risk taking, and renders classes bland or boring. Everyone seems to agree in the old saw, we learn from our mistakes. No errors = no learning. And few understand that risk taking or innovating in a classroom is very dangerous for the professor. I am not just talking about the wonderful film: Dead poet Society. Quality is poorly judged, especially if evaluated on the short term say a semester (and defined or delimited by scores?). Truly creative, innovative and striking concepts are usually met at first with derision. This applies to students and teachers alike. It can take many years before the genius of an endeavor is realized.

I can not tell you how many times alumni contact me to say that while in school they considered my course to be the WORST they ever had... ANYWHERE! and that now they always use critical thinking techniques or other concepts that I taught at work or even daily and thank me.

Finally, in the same vein, no man is an island, teachers and students either. I can cite WHERE GOOD IDEAS COME FROM by Steven Johnson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=NugRZGDbPFU

So the real question for institutions (and us) to ask is: " What environments, networks, and skills are required for 21st century teaching to be successful?"

BTW In the questionnaire, mentioned by Simon Hull, there were a few queries that were more like constructive criticisms. I like the idea of asking if the equipment, surroundings, students and teacher need assistance. But that is more like a suggestion box than subjectively judging.

The questions should be relevant. The sample size needs to be statistically valid. When the students are given the option to fill out an evaluation I have found that you only get the students who really, really liked the professor or more often those who had an axe to grind with the professor. One time on a promotion & tenure, the committee was arguing about the promotion of an assistant professor. A total of three students had filled out the evaluation. One really liked her. One hated her and one was in the middle. The chair was trying to make some analysis on the basis of numbers alone until it was pointed out that there were only 3 responses out of 30 students in the class.

Dear colleagues,

Thank you for all of your kind responses, many of which I find very helpful and inspiring.

Perhaps I should have made it clearer that by using 'autonomy', I did not refer to an absolute status of 'freedom' that allows one to do whatever they want. Quite the opposite, as a good student of sociology, I am well aware of the longstanding structure-agency debate. I think we all agree that no matter how solid and strict the structure is, people can always apply their agency in certain ways, and these may lead to different actions and hence alter the impacts they may have on the society. On the other hand, no matter how 'free' that people think they are, their thoughts and actions are always restricted by norms and rules (however loose, 'soft', and implicit these are).

Therefore, the question I asked here is on how to navigate a balance between the structural/institutional arrangements that aim to hold the teaching quality (I think research is a very different thing thanks to the peer-review system) of university teachers accountable on the one hand, and the autonomy that allows front-line educators to best apply their agency to enhance the quality of their teaching (which often intertwined with, but not always equal to students' feeling of their learning experience -- thanks Simon and Christopher for the contrast between your equally insightful answers) on the other.

I now doubt there is an easy and clear answer to this question. That said, thanks to your comments, I now also think that perhaps we, as university lecturers and professors, can make things slightly better by (1) recognizing the complication in the area and always be proactive in seeking for a balance between respecting the structures and applying our agency, (2) following the professional codes (and challenging them through institutional channels when we feel they are no longer appropriate), and (3) always applying our compassion and common sense in educating our students.

Mr. Tao,

The fact that you have distinguished between 'teaching' and 'research' in the Higer Education means that you are completely not recognized with the follwing basic principle:

''...the learning product is identical with the learning process.''

The learning ''product'' in context education means 'knowledge and skills' of the students.

In the field of the science (sociology does not represent science) the lerning process is associated with knowledge of conventions (theories, concepts, ideas, laws, etc..) which should be present to the students persuasively. This means that the theoretical concepts are supported by a significant amount of experimental work. On the one hand the experimental work convinces the students of the validity of the theory. Thus, the experimental work (research) ensures a better understanding and most important remembering of the ideas and the theories. In additon to the fact that via the research the students learn that the theories are true.

I should mention that the above statement is valid not only to the fields of the natural sciences andmathematics, buto to meny other fields, for instance, Law Sciences, history, in particular highlighting archeology and many more.

The improvement of the learning process and learning ability is a sub-area of an area of the medicine called psychiaty. The latter one is developed from 400 BC. Or this area has history of more than 2000 years.

In this context, as I have written before the management of the Higer Education Systems dates from 1000 years.

I fully understand that once when the people take diploma for Higher Education they seek for a professional realization, however, the fact is that you claim for a excellent educational skills and knowldege but you are not recognized with the matter shown above. On the other hand you have involved yourself in a discussion which is far from your area of experience. The latter raises a question about the quality of your curriculum in sociology....

Hi Bojidarka B. Ivanova,

Thank you for your response but I think you have totally missed my points.

I was not saying that teaching should be distinguished from research. I simply mentioned that the measure for teaching and research can be very different. For example, I think most, if not all, front-line lecturers would oppose the idea of using numbers of publications in pedagogical journals (a typical way of measuring research in the field of pedagogy) as the primary indicator to measure the quality of one's teaching, although it might not be a bad idea to incorporate this into a wide range of criteria that measures one's contribution to the teaching and learning in a higher education institute.

Furthermore, whilst good teaching should always be informed by solid research, in everyday practice teaching and research often require very different sets of skills. Hence, I think it is not too unfair to say that the methods that are widely applied to measure research outputs (such as the number of publications/citations, impact factors, etc.) are very different from those applied to measure the quality of teaching. I think we all know one or two colleagues who are very good at research but not so good at teaching (or vice versa).

The concept and scope of what you described as 'science' are in themselves interesting questions, but I think they are far too complicated to be discussed here -- specialists from fields such as sociology of knowledge and philosophy of science have said much. At the end of the day, the answers to these questions are based on the consensus of the academic community rather than from the personal opinion of any individual. You are, of course, entitled to have your opinions on every thing, but these are only your opinions.

I am not sure whether you are in a position to judge whether it is legitimate for me to ask my question here, either. To be clear, I am not playing a managerial role, nor do I claim myself an expert of higher education. Yet, I think it is in the right of every university lecturer and professor to reflect on how to do our job -- teaching being a big part of it, in addition to research -- more effectively and efficiently. I don't think my question is far from my area of experience, and I do not believe that one who understands how to do good research automatically understands how to provide good teaching.

On another note, I think we should always remain professional in a professional discussion forum by avoiding personal attacks. You (as well as everyone else) have every right to question my credentials, my qualifications, and my teaching records in sociology, but I do not have an obligation to report these to you. Nor do I have the interest to elaborate or discuss them here. Those are for my professional peers and working institute to judge.

Best regards,

Yu Tao

To evaluate the quality of the professors by means of the approach of the students supposes a risk, the student's dislike for some professor specifically, etc. I Think that it should have a balance that the student can say about the quality of the conferences, the text books that you/he/she is demanded to consult and for the one that you/they go she is necessary to respond exams, this can contribur to elevate the quality of the teaching, but anything of this should condition the permanency of a professor in the cloister, etc, whenever I/you/he/she is not evident that the professor doesn't have the enough knowledge or that he doesn't have all the capacities to impart knowledge.

Its very hard to evaluate the quality of teacher because its depends on many criterion (the kind of learner, the learning content, the context,...). However its possible to evaluate the quality of learning using many tricks for example:

• Use different professors to teach the same content and use the same evaluation
• Its possible also to use advanced pedagogical algorithms to evaluate the quality of learning based on students score
• Define a pedagogical scenario before starting the learning module and use a external party to evaluate the learning (For example certification for IT fields, Industrial expert,...)
• Choose the right student to get feedback (honest and competent)

I think that the respect to the autonomy and the dignity of the university lecturers and professors is not autogenerated by the system, but a requirement that is achieved and preserved with the recognition of peers, among which undoubtedly the students are https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs11092-018-9279-3.pdf

In a serious, objective and balanced system of quality and accountability of the higher education peer evaluation is increasingly an inexcusable requirement that is going to be given in voluntary form or otherwise it will be progressively forced by future’s certifications of quality https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-017-0185-2

The quality of the teaching is an integral part of the scientific research.

Similar to the University of Cape Town, at Sakarya University we request our students to fill out an online evaluation for each class in the end of each semester, just before the announcements of the final exam results. Questions are about the teaching methods and behaviors of the lecturer and the course itself. But, I do not believe that such evaluations are reliable enough to measure the teaching quality of the lecturers. As most of our students fill out the evaluation forms with their emotions.

The other issue discussed here was the influence of the publication and research quality of a lecturer on her/his teaching quality. I believe that influential publications, conference papers or highly prestigious books do not guarantee a good teaching. Therefore, combination of student evaluation forms and peer reviewing/coaching among the lecturers might be the best way to assure the teaching quality.

In terms of autonomy faculty in higher education institutions need to have enough space and freedom in expressing their views in speech and writing in the course of teaching and/or research. In the same vein, the accountability lines of faculty should be defined clearly and communicated transparently