Open AccessThe Validity of Student Evaluations of Teaching
Author(s) -
Peter Slade,
Christopher McConville
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
international journal for educational integrity
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.494
H-Index - 10
ISSN - 1833-2595
DOI - 10.21913/ijei.v2i2.21
Subject(s) - popularity , dimension (graph theory) , face validity , set (abstract data type) , psychology , mathematics education , content validity , survey research , survey instrument , pedagogy , social psychology , computer science , applied psychology , mathematics , psychometrics , clinical psychology , pure mathematics , programming language
This article considers the validity and usefulness of student evaluations of teaching (SET) at a small Australian university. Face and content validity were considered and a factor analysis was performed to evaluate the overall validity of a survey instrument which purports to give useable results in respect to teaching methods and approaches. It was found that the survey instrument was flawed in that the ten compulsory questions of which it is constituted, all collapsed into one dimension. This dimension was determined to be the extent of popularity of the lecturer for whom the survey was conducted. In essence, the survey is not an evaluation of teaching, but rather students' opinions of the lecturer concerned. It was concluded that the SET survey serves no educational purpose and is a violation of academic freedom and lecturers’ rights.