Date of Award
1-1-1989
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Center for the Advancement of Education
Advisor
Frederick C. Kintzer
Committee Member
Martha Nawy
Committee Member
Ross E. Moreton
Keywords
accountability, administration, advanced placement registered nurses, clinical instructors, clinical settings, codified policies, criteria, decreased resources, department of nursing, evaluation instruments, evaluation patterns, evaluation procedures, evaluation systems, expert faculty members, faculty, faculty development, faculty evaluation, faculty input, faculty performance, formative evaluations, higher education, inflation, instructor evaluation, interpretation results, Likert scale, literature review, merit increases, national norms, negotiations, nursing education, objective content, peer evaluation, personnel action files, promotion, research, service, San Jose State University, statistical analysis, student evaluation, teacher effectiveness, teaching, undergraduate students, United States, university evaluation systems, validation, weaknesses
Abstract
Evaluation of teacher effectiveness is a major issue in higher education today. Many external forces contribute to the urgency with which institutions of higher learning attempt to evaluate teachers. These forces include inflation, decreased resources, fewer students that results in a need for fewer faculty, and accountability. In addition, faculty are demanding codified policies and procedures so that they have a standard by which they can protect themselves in negotiations for promotion or merit increases and in courts of law if a dispute arises over promotion or academic decisions. Faculty can also use evaluation results for the improvement of teacher performance..
The purpose of this work were, (1) To review the system of evaluation in higher education in the United States, including identifying patterns of evaluation and their strengths and weaknesses. (2) To study existing policies in the evaluation system at San Jose State University and how the current program lends clues to perceived problems. (3) To create and test an instrument for the evaluation system in the Department of Nursing, San Jose State University.
The research questions were delineated as follows: 1. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the existing evaluation system? 2. What patterns are discernible? 3. What should be the major characteristics for a teacher evaluation system for the university? 4. How can student evaluation be operationally included in the teacher evaluation system? And 5. How can such an operationally developed method be evaluated?
A general assessment of the evaluation of teaching in higher education was completed and the system at San Jose State University was compared to the national norms. A third major component of the study was the development and evaluation of an instrument for student evaluation of teacher effectiveness in a clinical setting. Fifty characteristics of an effective clinical instructor were taken from the literature and from faculty input. These characteristics were then rated on a five-point Likert scale by the advanced placement registered nurses and undergraduate students, the faculties, and two recent semesters of new graduates.
The list of 50 characteristics was also given to six expert faculty members for further validation. Based on statistical analysis, the original set of 50 characteristics was reduced to 27. The list of 27 was resubmitted to the undergraduate students and faculty. Additional statistical analysis was completed. The clinical students then evaluated their instructors at the end of the spring semester with 27 characteristic instrument.
A summary of the findings of the literature concluded that a faculty evaluation system should have known criteria, be administered at a known time to a specific population, with objective content utilized by all, with appropriate interpretation of the resulting data, and some mechanisms of rebuttal the findings if needed. Three major division of faculty evaluation were found to be teaching, research, and service.
In some aspects, San Jose State University met the patterns. University-wide evaluations were required of all faculty at specified times. The results of specific methods completed by specific evaluators, the result made known in the personnel action file, and with a means to rebut the results. A major weakness found was that there was only one evaluation instrument for all types of classes.
Utilizing the statistical and expert opinion results, a reliable and valid instrument was developed for student evaluation of teacher effectiveness in a clinical setting for the Department of Nursing.
Based on the findings of the study, the following recommendations were made. The instrument for student evaluation of teacher effectiveness for clinical settings should be accepted by the Department of Nursing evaluators in all of the areas of the system should be taught the process of how to evaluate. Experts could also help with the interpretation of results obtained. Specific criteria for evaluation of research and service should be developed. A more objective peer evaluation system should be implemented with the development of appropriate instruments for assessing faculty functioning. Faculty should be able to collect formative evaluations from students for improvements of teaching without the evaluations being placed in the faculty member's personnel action file nor being used in personnel decisions. greater attention should be paid to faculty development and should be supported by the administration.