The questionnaires used to survey recent students of a faculty member undergoing performance review include space for up to four supplementary questions. Two are prepared by the candidate and the tenured faculty members in his or her department. The remaining two are prepared by the student committee responsible for summarizing the survey results. The purpose of these supplementary questions is to tailor the questionnaire more closely to the specific faculty member whose performance is being evaluated. The questions should be designed to elicit information about aspects of the faculty member's teaching that are distinctive to his or her discipline, specific teaching responsibilities, methods of instruction, or other areas that may not be fully addressed in the general questions elsewhere on the questionnaire.
Below are some guidelines for preparing questions that will elicit accurate and informative responses.
- Use wording and phrasing consistent with the other questions
on the questionnaire. For example, use "the faculty member"
instead of "the instructor" or "Professor Jones."
- Ask about things students can reasonably be expected to remember,
describe, and/or evaluate. Some aspects of faculty performance
are outside the range of students' direct experience or knowledge.
For example, students don't typically have much exposure to faculty
committee work. Nor do they have the knowledge base needed to evaluate
the faculty member's level of expertise in a given area. They can
provide information on how effectively the faculty member promotes
student understanding of, or interest in, that area.
- Focus each question on a single topic or issue. Folding two
or more questions into one will compromise the accuracy of the responses.
Asking "Was the faculty member's feedback on student work timely
and helpful?" will pose problems if the students felt the feedback
was timely but not particularly helpful, or helpful but not sufficiently
timely. If a student writes "no," the reviewers won't know
if the problem was lack of timeliness, lack of helpfulness, or both.
- Keep questions simple and direct. Long questions, or questions
that include negatives, are more subject to misinterpretation by the
respondents.
- Avoid questions that are likely to evoke simple "yes"
or "no" answers. Remember that the goal is to provide
as complete a picture as possible of this faculty member's performance.
Instead of asking "Did the faculty member encourage the expression
of different points of view?" phrase the question to elicit more
judgment and/or description: "To what extent did the faculty
member encourage..." or "How effectively did the faculty
member encourage..." Adding "Please elaborate" or "In
what ways?" at the end of the question is another way to elicit
more information.
- Avoid leading questions. For example, asking "In what
ways does the faculty member promote active learning?" appears
to presume that the faculty member promotes active learning. Rewording
the question more neutrally will elicit more valid responses: "To
what extent does the faculty member promote active learning? Please
elaborate."
- Avoid words or phrases that might mean different things to different
respondents. For example, asking "To what extent did the
faculty member evaluate student work fairly?" is problematic
because students might assign different meanings to "fairly."
Some may interpret the question to mean, "Did the faculty member
spell out the criteria for evaluation in advance and adhere to them
in assigning grades?" Others may interpret the question to mean,
"Did the faculty member show favoritism in assigning grades?"
(Notice that this latter interpretation also falls prey to the problem
described in #2 above. Students can only evaluate favoritism if they
know what grades other students received and why.)
- Avoid replicating previous questions. The purpose of the supplementary questions is to elicit information that probably would not be elicited by the questions that precede them.
