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A University task force expects to correct problems faculty members found in
the Carolina Course Review in time for students to use the revised
questionnaire to evaluate faculty performance this fall.
The task force also hopes to recommend a permanent method for students to
evaluate courses and faculty performance, said Douglas Kelly, chair of the Task
Force on the Use of Student Reviews in Teaching Evaluation. Kelly is chair of
the statistics department.
Finding a permanent solution will depend in part on how much the University
wants to spend on administering the surveys, Kelly said.
"I'm pretty confident we can get state-of-the-art stuff, but it won't be as
cheap as the CCR," Kelly said. "That doesn't mean it will be grossly expensive,
but it will be more than we are spending now."
The need to replace or rewrite the CCR came this spring when faculty members
complained that the questionnaire could produce skewed scores, especially in
small classes, and therefore should not be used to measure faculty job
performance. In March, the Faculty Council voted to ask Provost Dick Richardson
to ban the use of the CCR in personnel or salary decisions.
That request prompted Richardson to bring the matter to the Chancellor's
Advisory Committee, which reviews personnel evaluations. That committee asked
that a task force study an alternative method for student evaluation of faculty
performance, said Bill Smith, special assistant to the provost.
Richardson said creating an alternative for the CCR is fine, but student input
will be a part of faculty personnel evaluations.
"We have to have student evaluation and have it attached to the dossier on all
personnel evaluations," Richardson said. "We have to have something that is
useful and comparable."
The CCR started in the 1970s as a course guide written by students for other
students, what Kelly calls a "consumer guide."
When the University decided a few years later that student input should be
part of evaluating faculty performance, the College of Arts and Sciences
started funding the distribution and tabulation of the CCR, Smith said.
Any new evaluation form created by the task force will have to serve three
purposes, Kelly said. Student evaluations are needed as:
"These are three different uses and we realize we need to serve them all,"
Kelly said.
He said that could be done. As a possible example of how, he said the
University of Michigan has a questionnaire with three sections, one each for
those three audiences.
A vast amount of research has been done on student evaluations in the last 20
years, Kelly said, making him confident the task force can get a high-quality
system for the University.
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