Student Evaluations of Teaching: Always a Hot Topic

What are they saying?

Inside Higher Ed today notes complaints from Australian faculty about increased use of student evaluations of teaching for faculty advancement.  The article is at

http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2012/08/13/australian-professors-object-student-evaluations and it links to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald which says (excerpt):

…Teachers at the Australian National University now need to explain themselves if too many students are not pleased with them and colleagues must argue why courses with student satisfaction rates of less than 50 per cent should be kept. One teacher emailed the union: ''I feel under pressure to lower standards and make the student experience more comfortable so I don't end up before the head of school to explain myself.'' …

Full article at

http://www.smh.com.au/national/postgraduate-education/anu-staff-object-after-getting-an-f-for-teaching-20120811-2415o.html

Of course, there has been much research on this issue, e.g.:

“Hot or Not: Do Professors Perceived as Physically Attractive Receive Higher Student Evaluations?”

The answer, by the way, is “yes.”

See http://www.suu.edu/faculty/robertsw/Evaluation%20Task%20Force/Hot%20or%20not.pdf

So here’s the problem for our colleagues in Australia: