No. The students are only one of the stakeholders. There are others: There is the professional practice, the alumni, the accrediting body, the university and the paying parent.

Student evaluation of the lecturer is only one input, which must always be taken with a bag of salt. Good faculty members recognise this and do not take it too seriously. For example, the standard form asks the student: Was the pace of the lectures OK? YES/NO. Now, how can the student answer that the first lectures were OK, but the pace of the later ones was too fast?

The standard form asks the student: Were the lectures hard? (The right answer to get promotion is YES”!)

Do not pander to your student's own perceived needs. Provide what you know is good for them!

Thank you for your reassurance, I feel increasingly like a lone voice where what is measured and reacted to is what can be counted/measured with the influence of student as 'customer' taking undue prominence along with flawed questions we have no control over.  With increasing social media and IT we are now getting systems that are being suggested for adoption that can provide students the chance to feedback after every lecture rather than even any pretence of reflective evaluation.

Dear Edward,

Many of us are currently working under the neoliberal educational paradigm which can be very counterproductive. Have a look at:

Connell, R. (2013) The neoliberal cascade and education: an essay

on the market agenda and its consequences. Critical Studies in Education, 54(2), pp. 99-112, DOI: 10.1080/17508487.2013.776990.

Cruickshank, J. (2016) Putting business at the heart of Higher Education: On neoliberal interventionism and audit culture in UK universities. Open Library of Humanities, 2(1): e3, pp. 1–33, DOI: 10.16995/olh.77.

@Edward. Flawed student evaluation forms omit questions like: "Speed of response to E-mails?" and every other type of modern activity.

The student is the most obvious stakeholder. Sometimes they are the vociferous unreasonable demanders.

In a way, getting instant, informal feedback via Elearning platforms is not a bad idea. It is like getting applause after a particularly good lecture. (Never happend in my lifetime!)

You have time to slip in an errata into the beginning of the next lecture, or adjust your pace before the formal student evaluations come in.

I have never been forced by the university to ask a question of the calibre: "Now that the course is completed, what else do you think should be included?"

According to Ian Kennedy, does it mean that feedback of students on lecturers is not to be taken into account? If not , how to integrate it in a research design ? 

Hi Edward, my answer to your question is it depends. As other colleagues stated, students are not the only stakeholders. Student feedback should be used lightly for specific objectives. It is a good idea to get their feedback on the delivery methodology and what other learning activities or practices they would think is good to include. Based on other course requirements, you could only make your own best judgement which points to take. Otherwise, it is not totally a good idea to change your teaching practices based fully on students' feedback.

@Ernest. No. I say that formal end-of-course feedback from students has to be handled sensibly, because of defects and gaps of coverage in the typically mandated questions by administrators. I would never recommend using such deficit data for any research study.

Nevertheless, rational, reasoned feedback by the smart students can really inform the curriculum design.  A questionnaire that is well designed by a researcher can very usefully be used to inform educational research. The advantage is that as a lecturer-researcher you can withhold marks unless the questionnaire is returned, yielding a 100% response rate!

@Ian. Thanks for your clarification. Instead of using questionnaire , what about designing interview as this could help deepening understanding on students . 

If you look at the literature, students have definite preferences but those preferences don't predict actual learning. That said, I like to take a student-centered approach, where these issues are addressed openly and, as someone else said, other stakeholders are acknowledged.

To Christopher -- there is a body of literature that does show predictive relationships between student preferences and actual learning.  Please see:  http://www.apa.org/education/k12/learners.aspx  The KEY is for teachers and researchers to understand how students learn inside and outside of school settings.

In my experience, student evaluations are used for 2 purposes:  1) [Good] to weed out truly bad lecturers, 2) [Bad] to justify getting rid of professors the "powers" have decided are unworthy. 

I have always tried to find the useful nuggets of feedback in student evals, although they are few and far between. Doing an informal, interim evaluation in class is a useful way to address issues before the formal evals. Students respond well when you make changes, even small ones, based on their feedback. I also address misconceptions like "I would be best for me as a student to get an easy A." 

I think it would help if we had more business support for our teaching. That is truly the best evaluation - that our students get jobs and have the knowledge they need to perform well. We tried to create a business "steering group" for our department, but we didn't have a model for how to make it work. 

I am thinking that it is of two ways. You actually need to understand the needs of the students. Are the "needs" actually going to help or not? If the needs are analyzed and they are considered not helpful to them they should be made to understand why the institution or even the individual teacher will not go by that. But if on the other way round, I think there should be an adjustment. The essence of our being in the classroom is to equip them with skills and competences that will help them survive in the society they found themselves.

Kingsley, thank you for an excellent reflective point, but the difficulty is that organisational questionnaires at module or subject level do not tend to focus on these issues specifically. Your points have provided a good start for some personal deeper reflection on those factors.

Both, as students can give feedback on both issues indicating technical areas that are demanding as 'too hard' and if the style of delivery is not sufficiently entertaining they can comment on that. We can respond to the what with professional body restrictions to a point but the demand for constant entertainment from teaching sessions in addressing the how is becoming a sector wide expectation as far as I can tell. If you can comment on the latter part that would be more helpful.

Dear Dr Edward,

Learning is a situation like any situation of our life, it has all components of communication sender, receiver, message, feedback, noise, and channel.  We have in our universities certain forms that distribute to students at the end of each term then student respond to the points came in the questionnaire; some points are asking out of the performance of teachers such as availability  of library, space, ventilation, cooperation from employees in the library. ..etc. Also we have certain ILOs to follow and to ensure that we follow the specification of the course. All that can be done beautifully, but  that depends on the teachers and administration. Also these forms can be filled ideally to satisfy the required to do( from the university viewpoint). However, the outcome may not satisfy our real stakeholders (students). OK follow the specification of the course and achieve the ILOs but with nice experience to listen to stakeholders and respond positively.

Best regards

Being entertained has different meanings for different students.  Often when students look bored or we think they are not paying attention, they are in fact thinking about what is happening not just on the podium by the instructor but by what others in the class may or may not be doing.  Our assumptions about what is going on in the minds and hearts of students can be way off-course.  Regardless of institutional restrictions or requirements, we as professors can always do innovative things in our teaching nd testing practices.  Getting students involved in telling us what they want the class and content to be about, giving them voice nd choice, can change the whole thing to a more learner-centered and engaging context for even a 'dry lecture.'

As lecturers we are competing with slick TV presenters. We are facing an audience brought up on 3-minute music videos with scene segments each lasting no longer than 2 seconds. The attention span is pre-moulded.  

We are faced with the Google Generation who want instant, push-one-button solutions to all questions. What our students must face up to are hard questions which have no instant push-button answers.

Try not to be dry, yes, but we cannot be pure entertainers!

@Ian - you look like you could be quite entertaining (smile).  Seriously, I do not find the students I teach to want entertainers as much as they want relevance and assurance that they can succeed in class and in life.  A lecture can be interactive and that is what I do -- it gets me off the hook as the students end up entertaining all of us.

I agree with the answer of Dr. Ian Kennedy.

Regards

SM Najim

Needs are shaped by making major adjustments to teaching-learning process through significant symbiosis between the different stakeholder, i.e., student, faculty, and institution. Wants are satisfied by minor adjustments by teachers engagement during a course duration (semester or year) and are frequently within the control of the teacher (ideally teachers are assumed to be perfect). Two pertinent issues need to be looked into, i.e., the shift of educational practice from a teacher-centered to a student-centered learning environment, time dimension challenge (how wants and needs can be satisfied in short duration). These are largely an education system level problem. Probably experiential learning is the way forward.

The other issue you raised is about 'feedback'. The traditional questionnaire or evaluation forms is rather focussed on 'teaching' component and may not be capturing the 'learning' component adequately. Even if feedbacks are credible and robust, Faculty capability and flexibility would limit the mismatch that can be handled at that level. Finally, as indicated by @Ian sir it is best that Faculty (with imperfections and limitations) decide what changes are needed on his delivery-engagement method to satisfy student's perceived needs.

I like the theory of cognitive load.

Absolutely not.  The learners are not experts and have no idea where they are going.  They know where they want to go, and typically, that is the path of least resistance.

Kirschner in an article on "Urban Myths in Education" describes this as being akin to letting children decide what kind of food they want.  It may not be in their best interest to go for which "tastes" best.  Sometimes, you have to eat your vegetables :)

And I will echo Aldona's comment that the theory of cognitive load is especially important to consider in terms of designing a learning environment conducive to learning.  A student might like to multitask but there is strong empirical evidence that it does not help - it hinders - learning.

Hi Edward. I think it is important for every  teacher to choose between student- centered learning or teacher-centered learning strategies or a combination of both.  This article could be useful. Regards. Zin Eddine

http://education.cu-portland.edu/blog/classroom-resources/which-is-best-teacher-centered-or-student-centered-education/

Using the constructionist approach students will build on what they have experienced in life as student, for example they have their role models whom they candidly remember and cherish as the best teachers. They have a life history of how they learnt concepts and ideas using teaching methods which their role models were using. A good facilitator will lead students to explore the best practices through reading widely, study the educational  psychology to get familiar with learning theories, apply what they learnt in from foundation department. the students can also do min presentations before fellow students to help them get best practices. Through experience, YES the students can be allowed to do what they want

All meaningful learning starts with a positive affect, which is a desire to learn. If students' desire to learn is reduced by an unfamiliar pedagogy, it is usually because an instructor has not coached the students in how to learn or in what constitutes intellectual development and higher level thinking. Students begin with thinking that becoming educated is simply about learning content and skills. If instructors do not educate students in what constitutes different stages of thinking, student will graduate still believing that education is about knowing facts and acquiring skills. The worst practices involve springing unfamiliar pedagogies onto students and presuming that they will like these and make good use of them. Unless you teach in a highly selective institution, most students will not understand how to engage well with less familiar approaches to teaching. It is up to us to not just teach our discipline, but also to teach how to learn, and what higher stages of thinking actually look like. Attached is a file that is research-based and teaches the nature of higher level thinking. Try it with your students as a take-home assignment followed by discussion in class.

Some thoughts come to mind:

communities of practice might be a good place to start thinking about why you think you and your students want such different things and why that might be a problem

Pupil voice (particularly the work of Jean Rudduck) - it is important that students are consulted about teaching and learning (not just uniforms and the lunch rota which usually happens in schools) -but the warning is that you have to aware of WHO you have consulted and WHO you are listening to (the loudest voices might not actually represent the majority view)

In our new world where performance seems to matter more than actual learning you do have to bear in mind that your students really do have to pass the test at the end and for many that will be their sole motivation. This is sad but until our system changes it is what we have to work with.

I would be a bit concerned if you think that what you are doing as a teacher is so different from what they want as learners - at the end of the day T&L is about relationships and trust. If you want them to work in a different way to what how they think they should be then TALK to them about why there is this difference and what they'll get out of it. Pedagogy i.e. T&L is about the WHAT, the HOW and the WHY (not just the what)

I would just highlight the requirement for reasonable adjustment, differentiation and personalisation under the teaching excellence framework (issue 2016), linking to the UK Equality Act (2010).

In my teaching experience (23 years in a junior college) I found that the harder I taught the better the ratings my students gave me.  By hard I do not mean impossible or unrealistic expectations, but when students feel they are getting their time and money's worth they appreciate it.

Blaine,

My experience is similar to yours based on the awards I have from students indicating a high quality learning experience and testimonies over my teaching career of the same duration - but at a cost to my career in relation to not having spent enough time developing research activities to the levels expected for promotion. I have noticed a clear change in how teaching has changed for pupils prior to University within the UK with a consequential change in student expectations.

I heard a story once that a teaching award could be the death knell for a research career.

Seems to be fact if my career is anything to go by - but since they started student awards at the University I work in I have been getting them; no real regrets - I know which I value more.

Painfully ironic that the purpose of a university is to teach, yet the very qualities that make an excellent teacher tend to disqualify one as a respected academic professional.

Perhaps this is related to the problems of primary and secondary education in the US today.  Those things that are readily testable do not necessarily qualify one for preparedness in life, but all our educational system can evaluate on is written tests.

Since half of our minds are verbal (and social) and this is the easiest to test we are probably over-focused on that portion of our mind, to the exclusion of non-verbal skills (music, arts, sports, non-verbal social evaluation).

One of the underlying issues being identified here is 'the way academics view/value teaching over other duties such as serving on various committees, mentoring students, conducting original research, and contributing to the literature in their respective fields.'  For those who value teaching and seriously apply a variety of strategies in their lectures to engage and get students to contribute their thought about what makes  'good lecture' or 'what is relevant to them' -- fighting administrative/political pressures to use university-designed evaluations often express the frustrations I read here.  A big issue also mentioned is how these evaluations are designed and done, how reliable they are in identifying 'good teaching and good teachers', and many other issues often determined by staff who do not understand how students or people learn best.

On the other hand, for those who correctly believe there are many stakeholders in what is taught and how it is taught, what students are learning, and whether the institution is preparing and retaining the best students and/or giving all students a chance to succeed academically -- the answer is more complicated and requires an understanding of the purpose of institutional research, the preparation of graduate students, teacher aides, and professors through teaching and learning centers, etc.  This is where the political nature of academia surfaces and the "we-they" attitude between administration and academic professors and their staff becomes clear. 

The goals of each stakeholder group are different and the many committees formed attempt to address these issues.  In my experience, however, the divide is too great and only in a few cases and with much effort (that includes getting all stakeholders invested in coming up with  'solution' does the institution actually change so that great teaching and learning becomes the mission, motto, and vision of the institution.

I am curious to know what factors this group believes are most critical in helping their institution become learner and learning focused, with the mission of learning for all?

As there are different stakeholders we need to have a pattern that trains the student in the best possible manner and not solely as the students want to be trained. The industry requires hands on training so give the students that and so on...  

To some extent, of course, we have to keep students reasonably content! However, there is a lot of  research into metacognition and memory which demonstrates that student perceptions of their own learning don't always match well with what is actually beneficial. We know that when they are left to study independently, learners often choose ineffective strategies such as cramming, re-reading and highlighting. Similarly their perceptions of what is an effective lecture might depend mainly on enjoyment or on their inaccurate preconceptions of learning - they are not, after all, experts in pedagogy.

Unfortunately, I haven't seen a well designed teacher evaluation form. Most of the teacher evaluations are based on "perceptions" of the students about the teachers performance, but seldom consider other areas such as personal values. For most students if the teacher spends too much time lecturing, he/she will be considered boring, on the other hand some students will value more practical activities over lecturing. But teaching is only part of what the teacher does, there is planning, negotiating, administering, dealing with parents and students idiosyncrasies , etc.

You can adapt your teaching practice according to your group size, time and school requirements, considering also some of the students expectations and so on. Nevertheless you own perception of who you are, as a teacher, is more important and also you must take into consideration your own professional goals and objectives, let say you want to introduce a new method or technology into your practice, you will have to make some adjustments to the way you teach and the way you deal with the class, perhaps you will have to encounter a temporary set back or negative comments at first, but in the long run you will prove whether the innovation was effective or not. 

The actual learning environment affects the students perception, I assume you are speaking about the traditional face to face class, but there are nowadays other learning environments to consider such a as mobile, distance and mixed learning environments in which the teaching is different and therefore cannot be judged the same way as the face to face traditional class. 

Changing teaching practice is something that is often necessary. I personally feel that changing teaching practice does not mean not teaching the necessary content for the student to be able to succeed in their educational requirements. With the change in how young people get their information I think that teaching needs to keep teaching up to date and interesting for the student. 

This sounds so much like being the parent of  a teenager.  The best council I have heard is to be agreeable with as many things as you can, and save the battles for the things which really matter.

In terms of teaching, I respond to students as a scout master does.  I offer only the options which are meaningful experiences.  I try to listen when the seem at all to be making honest suggestions.

When I really try to listen and Have at least several items in which a class can vote on  - due dates, value of homework (within modest bounds) whether to drop a low homework,  . . .  seems to result in a greater buy-in by my students.  When students feel that they have no control, they tend to lose commitment to class easily.

Typically I don't change my standards, but I am flexible about how they reach them.

I AM LEARNING ONE THING PAINFULLY EVERY SEMESTER.  I need to be explicit about my expectations.  I expect students to progress in Piaget Hierarchy of abstraction by studying electricity and magnetism.  I finally learned to tell them.  I am amazed at how helpful this is, even in the most granular level.  I am constantly discovering more expectations which I have unconsciously held students to, and am making more explicit.

Professor have an obligation to teach the stated content of the course to competency level at the very least. However, when the students actually want to learn about a particular related item in depth, this is where the real learning takes place. 

What if a student evaluation form was written that assumed that the students hated the teacher and perhaps the work that they were doing, but looked for how much awareness the students had for the subject, how much they actually liked the subject and whether the goals of the class were being met?

Since such a questionnaire would require that the surveyor actually had an understanding of the curriculum, a knowledge of the stated goals and experience with real classroom functioning it is not likely that this would ever be done.

Appropriate evaluation questions appropriately interpreted are important.

I have a bad example.  (I may need to be boo'd off this forum for misdirecting the discussion.)  At our institution an evaluation question is "How much did you learn in this course compared to other courses you are taking?"    Well, a good science course opens vistas of the universe ahead which we won't yet understand.  Students often seem to respond to the question in terms of what fraction did they learn of what they learned about.

To borrow my daughter's favorite bad language, "Good questions is hard."

In terms of student evaluations, in Missouri many of the questions are mandated by the state legislature. The problem here is student participation or lack of it in the evaluation process. Student participation is voluntary and involves logging onto to a computer website for the class. It is a fair statement to say that many do not bother.  i was sitting on a promotion and tenure committee meeting at the college level. One of the professors was saying how the candidate for promotion had mediocre to bad student ratings.  A thorough examination revealed that n=3. One student loved the candidate, one hated the candidate, and the remaining student rated the candidate in the middle.   When it was pointed out to the chair of the committee that this particular rating was statistically invalid in a class of 50, it caused some consternation because it pointed out the fallibility of the rating system. 

I think it is a good idea to base the learning on the students needs and interest. By doing so, the students will be motivated to learn the intended materials and they can be more interactive with teachers and the given material. Therefore, it should be taken in consideration what students like which it is stemmed from students evaluation and their feedback on teachers' performance and the way of delivering the lessons. So, it is a process of different process by receiving students feedback and exploring students interests which it can be helpful for teachers to develop their methods and materials and giving more space for students to participate in designing the curriculum.

There is no question about that. However, it is always necessary for the instructor to know what he/she is teaching. Based on that, it is important to practice a good method of students' evaluation so that you are able to make the right decision for instruction based on the evaluation conducted.  

This is an important yet difficult question to respond to. While most student feedback comes through evaluation questionnaires, one needs to distinguish between responses in these questionnaires (often to closed items) and what students freely communicate on an ongoing basis over the semester. One could argue that responses to a questionnaire may not necessarily be a true representation of what they actually wish to communicate.

Notwithstanding the distinction I am making, I still feel that one needs to be cautious about altering teaching practice based on what students say they want. In many instances, student feedback is not always motivated by a commitment to learning. It could be that they are seeking to have the approach to teaching altered in order to improve their chances at doing well in an exam. In many instances their requests are influenced by forces in the external environment that condition them to take a more instrumentalist means-end outlook on how they view themselves as learners and what they want out of their educational experience.

Having said that, I think that teaching practitioners should become keen and critical listeners of the information that students communicate. They must be able to delve beneath the surface of the words uttered because in many instances, there could very well be a hidden core message that warrants attention and which should be taken on board for enhancing the overall teaching-learning experience.

I agree with Olabisi.  For me the perfect expectation to set in class is that the essential outcomes of the course are fixed.  But I am willing to do what ever I can to help students reach them. 

If I am faithful to the objectives,and can demonstrate that I am faithful and trustworthy to students as well as the objectives, then they are more apt to trust me with their real ideas and feelings.  That is, I am their friend in conquering the concepts.  (My favorite joke when they ask if they can skip something is thus a little risky:  "Well, all points are optional.")

I can destroy that trust immediately by embarrassing someone in front of their peers.  When a student really puts me on the spot by expressing a very wrong idea in class, I explain how brilliant minds in physics have believed the way they expressed for thousands of years (in the case of Aristotle' physics).  Why this natural and reasonable thinking is wrong and how we learn that another conception is right becomes an exciting challenge.

I also help overcome this embarrassment they might feel in front of their peers in part by explaining that the concepts I teach are now easy for me, after 25 years.  What I now find challenging is finding ways to help people who are different than I am to understand the content meaningfully.  I am grateful for any data they can give me about how and why this is difficult for them.  I am similarly grateful for any data they can give for how to make the right answer meaningful to them. 

Students articulating these things is a powerful form of meta-cognition which scaffolds their learning, as well as helping me.  That is, it isn't entirely selfish of me to ask for the data.

Dear Edwards,

Related to your question, my point is on how to help students realize what they really need are. We need to know better our students. We should talk intensively with them, and whenever possible, we can share and exchanges experiences, and let them to reflect on what they need.  

Our students now are coming from different generation. They are mostly gen y and gen z students., and we are of the gen x generation. We have different characteristics from them. Our preferences are different from their preferences. What is good from our point of view could be bad from their point of view. Therefore, basing on what we know to determine their needs is not fully correct activity.  

What we need is to help them develop their potential to life in their era, not in our era. Therefore, we need to help them realize their future and discuss with them on to face the problems and challenges in the future. We need to help them to develop their own good ideas to handle their problem in the future.

To do so, we need to get a personal respect from our students. We need to be perceived as their best partner (although we are their teacher). To make it happen, we need to intensively talk  and communicate with them (using technology is a possible activity for this aspect. Students from gen y and z are happy to use technology for their business). Therefore, we need an extra time to communicate with our students. Face to face meeting in the classroom is not enough anymore for us to make them respect to us and follow our guidance. 

So, my suggestion is : What about if we use technology to communicate informally with our students so we really know their needs, and respond accordingly in our teaching.

Regards

Abdur Rahman As'ari 

Hi there.

When we tried to use the idea of ePortfolio or the concept of PLE, It  seems to be important to improve the way the students carry out the management of the learning outside the classroom, creating conditions that enable them to become aware of their progress and their difficulties in relation to the learning tasks they have to carry out.

It seem to be essentially a question of teachers helping the students to delineate strategies to deal more suitably with the difficulties that arise out of an online learning context,redoubling the attention paid to the communication and interaction processes among students and between students and the teacher...

What if a student evaluation form was written that assumed that the students hated the teacher and perhaps the work that they were doing, but looked for how much awareness the students had for the subject.

A 360 degree evaluation that gives all stakeholders an opportunity to evaluate the practices at the classroom, school, or other meaningful system context is what is required to get the most reliable and valid data regarding what practices best meet student learning needs.  Please see:  https://www.routledge.com/Learning-to-Learn-International-perspectives-from-theory-and-practice/Deakin-Crick-STRINGHER-Ren/p/book/9780415656245 and http://www.apa.org/education/k12/learners.aspx

I wholeheartedly endorse what Olabisi Kuboni and other have said. In other words, in order to make a sound judgment about whether or not to modify teaching practices one has to do more than formal paper assessments.

I hope that I am not redundant, but I was taught that as a parent of teenagers, that I should say "Yes" as often as possible, and save the "No's" for the times that really matter.

Students tend to respect the "No's" when they feel appropriately that they are heard.

Students normally get bored when they experience very few methods of teaching/learning. Students enjoy when they are in charge of what they are learning. Teachers/instructors need to use interactive methods which make a students enjoy with a lot of interest, inspired to learn, become actually critical thinkers, creative and end up being researchers. Teachers/instructors,  therefore, need to understand their students, other stakeholders in education and change his/her approaches to teaching.

Thank you Edward for the interesting question. Student's feedback is very important to improve the approach and strategies used in teaching without changing the learning outcomes of the course. From my point of view, a good way to make  students want what they need is to motivate them to learn. I am talking  about intrinsic motivation not the extrinsic one. For this, being professional is good but being also emotional (EQ) is better. If students realize that their success make you happy. They will do their best to make you even happier.