Using Student Feedback to Help Improve Teaching in the College Classroom

Abstract

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new” (). This quote by Albert Einstein expresses the importance of continually evolving the college classroom. There are a wide range of attitudes toward student evaluations of teaching or SETs, from complete rejection to acceptance and use. SETs results are widely used not only for administrative decision-making, but also for improving learning and building student-teacher rapport. For this reason, it is important to investigate faculty motives and reasoning for using or not using SETs. There is also a need for more information about which aspects of the SETs process faculty members view as useful and which parts are viewed negatively. More information about faculty perceptions of certain aspects could warrant important modifications to the SET process. The purpose of this chapter is to gain insight into how faculty view SETs and how they utilize the feedback received from them. The authors also hope to highlight the importance of engaging students in curriculum development to improve teaching effectiveness.