Relationships of research and teaching: Implications for faculty evaluation

This paper reports on research involving 23 hard science disciplines at a mid-western university. The data show a strong belief that research and teaching are complementary. Despite this, when it comes to time allocation, tradeoffs are necessary between the two functions. More time devoted to teaching is often detrimental to production of research output. More time was spent in research by higher performing researchers because they are more interested in that activity and rewards are attached to it.Administratively, evaluations tend to influence the direction faculty choose to follow. If teaching is to be restored to status equal with research, then the evaluation system must be changed to account for time input, and significant rewards for teaching must be offered.     

Implementing curriculum evaluation: case study of a generic undergraduate degree in health sciences

This case study presents a longitudinal, evidence‐based approach to health science curriculum reform and evaluation. Curriculum in higher education must meet the needs of diverse stakeholders and must respond to dynamic local, national and international contexts, and this creates challenges for evaluation. The long lead time prior to the introduction of new or revised university curriculum (at least two years), the length of degree programmes (three to five years) and the lag time in the availability of objective indicators of degree outcomes (at least one year post‐graduation) mean that findings may be obsolete before an evaluation can be completed. Few would argue that evaluation is important and methods and approaches for conducting curriculum evaluation are proposed in the literature, although few published reports of the outcomes of comprehensive evaluations are evident. This paper discusses potential for evaluation to establish responsive communication between students, teaching staff and programme administrators, ensuring a match between the intended, implemented and attained curriculum.     

研究型大学教师的职业成就评价指标探析

对两所研究型大学教师进行的职业成就评价指标的开放式访谈和问卷调查显示,大学教师职业成就的评价指标排序前五项分别是:学术同行认可度、职称、学生认可度、收入水平、职业满意度。该结果为进一步研究如何提高大学教师的职业成就做了必要的铺垫,也为教师队伍管理提供了有益参考。     

The place of colleague evaluation in the appraisal of college teaching: A review of the literature

The present review considers the nature of the problem of evaluating college teaching as well as the means by which this evaluation has been attempted. This review shows that there is little agreement as to what the criteria for evaluating college teaching should be. It is stated that student and administrator evaluation of faculty are, by themselves or combined, limited in scope. A list of 10 activities and faculty behaviors that can be more reliably and validly evaluated by fellow colleagues than by anyone else is presented, as well as 22 different criteria or approaches that could be used for this evaluation. Recommendations for upgrading colleague evaluation of teaching are made in the hope that the present state of affairs can begin to reach high levels of adequacy and objectivity.This research was supported by the Measurement and Research Division of the Office of Instructional Resources, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.     

以评促建：提升高校教学档案管理水平

从高等学校本科教学评估和教学档案互动关系出发,重点分析高等学校教学档案管理思路,为提高高等学校教学管理水平和再评估奠定基础。     

The evaluation of faculty development programs

This article reviews literature pertinent to the evaluation of faculty development programs and presents data from several studies conducted at two institutions. These data were consistent with those previously reported in that faculty participants consistently expressed satisfaction with development services. In addition, one study found that most faculty members voluntarily took some action to improve their instructional effectiveness, though only a minority pursued these efforts in depth. Volunteers who worked intensively with a faculty development consultant improved more on objective measures of effectiveness than did those who were only superficially involved in improvement efforts; those who received no consultative assistance failed to improve significantly. Evidence from a final study provided a control for faculty motivation and led to the conclusion that improvement was contingent both on faculty desire to improve and on the availability of professional assistance.     

以课后作业评价为主体的教师评价体系研究

教学评价是新课程评价改革中的重点和热点问题。教学评价可分为课前、课堂、课后评价三类。构建以课后作业评价为主体的发展性教师评价体系,包括作业内容的设置、设计及评阅的指导思想、设计及评价的形式,分析表明该评价体系具有可行性和重要意义,能充分体现教师的工作量和工作绩效,以促进教师的有效专业发展。     

A study on the tacit knowledge of university faculty: a case study in Taiwan

The tacit knowledge of university faculty might take roots deep down in their own cognition system and influence their ways of thinking and reasoning. This study aims at (1) the exploration of the characteristics of university professors’ tacit knowledge in Taiwan and (2) the disentangling of the factors underlying its development. Drawn from the data collected by qualitative observations and analyses, this study concludes: (1) In general, Taiwanese professors are of strong motives for self-fulfillment to be social elites and to pursue excellence form the backbone of the academic career. (2) The inner factors relating to faculty’s tacit knowledge include a high level of intelligence and analysis ability, the consciousness of being elite, the strong motives of constant pursuit of accomplishments, and the self-adaptation to the campus culture. (3) Its outer factors contributing to the faculty’s tacit knowledge include the peer consensus and competition pressure on campus, and the expectations of being a professional and a role model stereotyped by the society. Finally, several suggestions are provided for the cultivation of wide and open tacit knowledge so that the university faculty’s profession can be upgraded and more social responsibility can be shouldered.     

The impact of electronic media on faculty evaluation

With the proliferation of computer networks and the increased use of Internet‐based applications, many forms of social interactions now take place in an on‐line context through Computer‐Mediated Communication (CMC). Many universities are now reaping the benefits of using CMC applications to collect data on student evaluations of faculty, rather than using paper‐based surveys in Face‐To‐Face (FTF) classroom settings. While the relative merits of CMC versus FTF student evaluations have been researched extensively, there is limited research published about the ways students respond to the questions from either mode of data collection. This paper reports on a research study to analyse the communication differences between student scores from FTF student evaluations and CMC evaluation questions from end of semester evaluations from a university in the Middle East region. In addition to the questions about communication mode differences between two evaluation questions, several demographic variables were measured to determine any interaction effects. The results of our study suggest that the type of communication channel mitigates the responses that students make on CMC evaluations vis‐à‐vis FTF evaluations of faculty. In particular, even though there were significant differences found at the aggregate level between CMC and FTF evaluations, when the course and instructor are controlled for, there were no significant differences reported. In addition, several differences were noted depending on the type and level of the course being studied. Also, we found that students are more likely to express more extreme responses to scale questions in CMC than FTF evaluations. Administrators should consider these potential differences when implementing on‐line evaluation systems.     

Using faculty evaluation to improve teaching quality: A longitudinal case study of higher education in Southeast Asia

This paper presents a case study of implementation of a new system of faculty teaching evaluation at a graduate school of business in Thailand. The research employed a non-experimental, longitudinal case study design in the analysis of student course evaluation data gathered over a period of 21 terms during a seven-year period. The report describes the design of the performance and reward system and its role in the college’s quality improvement program. Quantitative data analysis focused on results related to both instructor performance and faculty turnover. The data suggest statistically significant improvement in levels of instructor effectiveness and faculty turnover in the college over the seven-year period. While the research is subject to the contextual limitations of case studies, it also demonstrates the possibilities and problems of employing performance and reward in higher education.     

闽南地区节能住宅经济效益评价及实证分析——以厦门某节能住宅为例

对于节能建筑而言,建筑投资、能源消耗等经济性指标不仅反映了初始建设阶段中的一次性投资,更反映于建筑运营期内的能源消耗费用。基于节能建筑中一些效果难以或不能货币化,文章综合应用了财务评价法和费用效果法具体分析了厦门某节能住宅。结果表明:节能建筑优于非节能建筑,在经济上是可行的,而且提高了居住舒适度,为社会节约了大量资源。     

石家庄高职院校师资队伍建设现状与对策研究

石家庄高职院校师资队伍数量严重短缺,教师素质呈下降趋势,结构配置不合理,双师型教师和兼职教师数量不足。对此,需加强＂双师型＂教师的培养,同时,加大公开招聘力度,着眼于人才总量的增长和质量的提高,实现人力资源的优化配置。     

The challenge of internationalisation: A case study on Austrian universities

Abstract

The current interest in governmental assessment and accountability practices appears to result from: (1) an emerging view of higher education as an “industry” (2) concerns about efficient resource allocation; (3) a lack of trust and confidence between governmental and institutional officials; (4) a desire to reduce uncertainty in government/higher education relationships; (5) lack of confidence in institutional governance. Based on these concerns, governments increasingly are engaging in data‐based quality assessment processes. These processes appear to assume that: (1) faculty and administrators know how to improve quality but fail to do so; (2) government officials can assure the public interest in quality; (3) measures of quality can be identified and agreed upon; (4) improving quality requires strong bureaucratic coordination and control; (5) information systems can provide the evidence government officials need to address quality concerns. An examination of literature on organisation decision processes suggest these assumptions are inaccurate.     

Comparative study of faculty evaluation of teaching practice between Chinese and U.S. Institutions of higher education

Along with the “massification” of higher education in China since the late 1990s, the issue of quality and excellence appeared at the top of China’s higher education agenda. Since faculty evaluation of teaching is one of the major approaches adopted by China’s higher education sector to pursue quality and excellence, it is valuable to examine the effectiveness of faculty evaluation of teaching practices adopted by the Chinese higher education institutions (HEIs). Study of current literature reveals some similarities and differences between the faculty evaluation of teaching policies and practices between Chinese and American higher education sectors. This paper examines the specific practices adopted by some top-tier Chinese HEIs and American elite colleges and universities, summarizes and analyzes the major differences and similarities of faculty evaluation of teaching practices between these two countries’ top-tier HEIs, and discusses the applicability of the American models to the Chinese setting of higher education. Finally, a set of best practices regarding faculty evaluation of teaching are proposed for Chinese HEIs.     

质性评价——教学评价发展的新取向

随着评价理论的发展，量化评价主导教学评价领域的格局已经打破，质性评价的方法越来越被广泛地运用于教学评价之中，其重视过程中的生成价值、强调评价的真实性、尊重学生个性等特点使教学评价能对整个教学过程作出真实、完整的价值判断。     

A case study on multiple-choice testing in anatomical sciences

Objective testing techniques, such as multiple-choice examinations, are a widely accepted method of assessment in gross anatomy. In order to deter cheating on these types of examinations, instructors often design several versions of an examination to distribute. These versions usually involve the rearrangement of questions and their corresponding answer choices. This study will determine whether the distribution of different versions of an examination affects student performance in a lower division anatomical science course. Students who receive the original version of an examination may be at an advantage over those that receive a shuffled version of an examination because of the systematic tendencies that go into examination construction. This study concludes that the shuffling of questions and answer choices to produce multiple versions of an examination does not affect student performance.     

Finding time for quality teaching: an ethnographic study of academic workloads in the social sciences and their impact on teaching practices

University workloads, their impact on staff and how they can be managed, are the subject of considerable research and discussion. This paper addresses strategies to deal with the impact of workloads on teaching practices in higher education. In particular, it aims to discover the implicit theories and tacit assumptions that underlie perceptions of what constitutes quality teaching in the social sciences. Using an ethnographic approach, the research revealed that the strategies used by staff are linked to how they identify themselves: as researchers or ‘good’ teachers, and highlights a mismatch between the value academics place on quality teaching and what is rewarded by universities. The paper illustrates that strategies rely on assumptions about the nature of time, and the links between time and quality. Academics have little opportunity for critical reflection on teaching practices in order to be responsive to the changing contexts of higher education.     

发展性教师评价实施的阻力分析及对策

教师评价可分为奖惩性教师评价和发展性教师评价。奖惩性教师评价,是一种弊端日显的终结性评价。发展性教师评价是一种关注教师发展的新型教师评价制度,它扬弃了奖惩性教师评价的弊端,是一种目前较为理想的教师评价。但是,发展性教师评价在我国并未得到普及,它在实施过程中遇到了一些阻力,只有消除了这些阻力,发展性教师评价才能得以顺利地实施与推进。     

浅谈行政机关目标管理评估方法

行政机关目标管理需要从“德”“能”“勤”“绩”方面进行量化，通过建立模糊数学模型进行评估。     

Student ratings of college teaching: a comparison of faculty and their students

Based on the review of student ratings myths by Aleamoni (1987, 1999), a survey research design was used to analyse differences between college students' (n = 968) and faculty's (n = 34) perceptions. Generally, students held stronger beliefs in these myths, in that they believed faculty with excellent publication records were better qualified to evaluate teaching and that student ratings on single general items are accurate measures of teaching effectiveness. On the other hand, faculty believed that student ratings were invalid and unreliable. Further examination of student characteristics revealed that male students held stronger beliefs in these myths. Finally, students' beliefs in these myths were correlated with their actual ratings of nine dimensions of the Student Evaluation of Educational Quality. A discussion as well as suggestions for using student ratings is provided.