How can student feedback be used effectively and ethically in faculty evaluation?

Student feedback is one of the best ways to gauge the course, school, and professors value. Especially when combined holistically with other data sets on any aspect of those three, feedback can unlock valuable insight that is otherwise not obtained. Consider a professor that consistently receives high marks on an aspect of their classroom skills. Administrators can use this information to make decisions on who is best fit to train new teachers. Alternatively, if many students have negative feedback about a course, across different professors, it may be time to update or reconsider the course’s significance.

Students feedback is a useful strategy to understand the strength and weakness of a faculty. But meanwhile, today's generation never bother about quality in teaching rather focus on the behaviour of the faculty. For example when a faculty is given 95% positive feedback for his subject and if students fail in large numbers during semester, now problem is with faculty teaching method or the attitude of student. Now if the answer is attitude of the students, then considering the feedback is of no value. 80% of the feedback collected from students are not based on parameters it's based on individual who is handling

Student feedback is a valuable tool for faculty evaluation, but there are challenges to consider. These include the subjective nature of feedback, low response rates, limited scope, and potential for misuse. It is essential to establish clear guidelines and protocols to prevent misuse and use the feedback in an ethical manner. Despite these challenges, student feedback can be an effective tool for evaluating teaching effectiveness in higher education and schools.

In my experience, student evaluations should be part of the promotion and tenure process, but with not much emphasis. The benchmarks other than subjective student feedback, like peer observation, exam statistics, and standardized exam results are better indicators of faculty work. When student evaluations are perceived as punitive, faculty can become despondent and work output suffers.

A former professor and mentor shared with the class that he reads every evaluation but takes special care to look for patterns. So he encouraged us to be as candid but also as specific as possible. This way, he could better understand what was working and what wasn't. I do the same.