The TTU Teaching Academy and the Teaching, Learning, and Professional Development Center (TLPDC) - with the support of the Office of the Provost - are committed to continuing to improve the culture of teaching at Texas Tech University. Our goal is to consider multiple sources of information that contribute towards assessing teaching effectiveness such as data from course evaluations, self-reflection of one’s own teaching, and peer evaluation of teaching.
Texas Tech instructors are committed to enhancing the quality of their teaching (and courses) at all steps of their development as instructors - from the newest graduate student instructors to full professors with decades of teaching experience. End of semester "course evaluations" or "student evaluations of teaching" ("SETs") are just one source of information that many instructors use to improve their courses and teaching across semesters, and are one source of information that administrators use to evaluate the quality of courses and teaching. Although these measures include valuable information and are easy to collect and analyze, they are not without their flaws, limitations, and opportunities for improvement. There are many potential ways to improve the quality, validity, and utility of these metrics for improving teaching and course quality across semesters or for use in administrative decisions. A committee co-chaired by Suzanne Tapp (TLPDC) and Michael Serra (Psychological Sciences) and comprised of faculty and student representatives (list below) has been working since Summer 2021 to examine course evaluations at Texas Tech. Our work is rooted in the scholarship surrounding student and course evaluations as we consider the purpose of gathering student feedback and how it is used (by instructors, by administrators), what the research suggests about the validity of this measurement, the potential biases, and the information we can gather about student perceptions of their learning.
Our ultimate goal is to make recommendations to the Provost's office for how the form and function of our teaching evaluations can be improved to best meet the needs of TTU students, instructors, and administrators. This might include changing the specific questions asked, providing more detailed instructions for students before they complete these evaluations, working to improve students' likelihood of completing these measures, or providing guidance for administrators on how these data should and should not be used in evaluating instructors.
To help us move forward in our recommendations, we need feedback from you as a TTU student. Please consider spending 10-15 minutes to complete the following survey about course evaluations. As we consider possible improvements to the course-evaluations procedure and seek to improve the validity of the instrument, we must first understand how others view the process and the survey tool. For example: What do you see as the purpose of student evaluations? How do you complete these surveys? Can the information we gather from students via these evaluations inform decisions about teaching load, merit, or promotion/tenure? What concerns or suggestions do you have?
As a way to thank you for your participation, you can choose to opt in to a raffle at the end of this survey. We will be raffling off one (1) Lume Cube Video Conference Lighting Kit and three (3) SAFUEL Portable Chargers (works with Apple iPhone, Samsung phones, Airpods, tablets, etc.). More details about these items are at the end of the survey where you can opt in to the raffle.
We appreciate your help and insight, and look forward to learning from you as we gather information and continue our committee’s work.
With appreciation,
Jason Headrick, Raegan Higgins, Hayden Holmes, Kerk Kee, Justin Louder, Angela Lumpkin, Michael Serra, Suzanne Tapp