Challenges in designing student teaching evaluations in a business program

Purpose - This article aims to present an empirical analysis of the effects of changes in the student teaching evaluation (STE) form in a business school.Design methodology approach - The authors discuss a case of STE re-design in a business school that focused on improving the STE instrument. They utilize empirical data collected from students that completed both the original and the revised STE form in several semesters of undergraduate economics courses to examine the effect of changing the evaluation scale and the fashion in which written comments are solicited.Findings - There are three results of interest to departments considering a change to student evaluation instruments. First, the authors find that a shift from a four-point scale to a five-point scale leads to a decrease in evaluation scores even after making an adjustment for scaling. Second, they find that students tend to give lower scores on comparison-type questions that ask for a comparison of the instructor or the course to the student's entire college experience. A larger share of such comparison-type questions may depress the mean scores on composite evaluations. Third, soliciting written feedback in a specific section of the form is an effective way to increase both the number of written comments and the size of each comment.Practical implications - Student teaching evaluations serve as an assessment instrument and are frequently used in faculty promotion decisions. A discussion of best practices in designing the STE is provided in order to caution the stakeholders of the problems that may arise and to guide academic institutions in the review of evaluation procedures.Originality value - The authors start with an example of STE re-design and then analyze empirical data from several semesters. Analysis of the literature and empirical evidence leads to recommended best practices that make STE data more useful both as a summative measure for administrative decisions and as a formative measure used by faculty looking to improve their teaching skills and course design.