Comprehensive Review of Reappointment, Renewal, and Repeated Term Appointment
Designing and Selecting the Sample: Issues to Consider
The sampling sizes and selection criteria recommended below generally result in a representative sample of respondents.
1. Determining the academic terms to be included in the sample selection process.
There may be competing considerations with respect to the academic terms included in the sampling design. Courses currently being taught should not be included, since student experience in these courses will only be partial, and students may be reluctant to participate, even anonymously, in the evaluation of a faculty member from whom they are currently taking a course. On the other hand, student recall is increasingly compromised by the passage of time, so evaluations based on courses taught several years ago are less reliable. Many departments choose to exclude the first semester of a faculty member's appointment, since that may not be as representative of the faculty member's teaching; but this may not always be possible, depending on the length of the faculty member's employment at the College. Departments are invited to consult with E&A in determining whether to use a different time frame for a specific review (e.g., to accommodate a period of released time in the candidate’s teaching).
2. Verifying the list of courses from which students will be selected.
Once the department has indicated the semesters to be included in the sampling process, E&A enters on the Sampling Request Form a list of the courses the faculty member has taught during each of these semesters, with enrollment totals for each course. The department should verify that E&A's list is complete and that all the courses on E&A's list should be included in the sampling process.
3. Identifying team-taught courses.
If there are reasons to eliminate one or more team-taught courses from consideration, the department should make this known. E&A will exclude team-taught courses from the sample if the request is made by the department.
4. Sampling students the faculty member has instructed in settings other than courses.
Departments may choose to sample students that a faculty member has instructed in setting other than courses. Examples of these other instructional settings include independent studies, studio or performing work, internships, faculty-student research projects, and coaching. Department that choose to do this are responsible for generating the appropriate list of student names as well as obtaining relevant contact information.
5. Determining the number of students to be selected.
The College faces a challenge in balancing the need for an adequate number of student evaluations to inform rehiring decisions and the number of times students are asked to provide these evaluations. The more frequently students are approached, the less likely they are to agree to participate. This argues for smaller sample sizes. However, in any given review, some of the students who are asked to participate will decline to do so. E&A aims for a return rate of at least 60%, but even this relatively high response rate means that up to 40% of the invited students will not participate. This argues for larger sample sizes. E&A's recommendation of 40 students for written evaluations in the "second" comprehensive reappointment review (often during fourth-year of a tenure-track appointment), and 30 students for other types of reviews, is an effort to balance these considerations
Note: There may be good reasons to depart from these guidelines to produce a more representative group. Departments are encouraged to consult with E&A in considering this as well as other issues.
