Teaching is an art that requires constant practice to master. To help professors grow and provide the best education to students, your institution can implement professor performance evaluations. These evaluations involve gathering feedback and data across all aspects of a professor’s role. Using this information, you can recognize every professor’s accomplishments and identify areas of improvement.
In this guide to evaluating professors, you’ll learn why evaluation is so essential for higher education institutions. There’s also advice on conducting performance evaluations and examples of questions you can include in teaching effectiveness surveys.
Why is faculty performance evaluation necessary?
Faculty performance evaluations for all staff members are necessary to ensure your institution’s long-term success. They contribute toward:
Improving teaching quality: Professor performance evaluations give instructors insight directly from students, allowing them to improve their teaching ability and reach students more effectively. Improvements they make to teaching methods and the learning environment directly impact student performance and satisfaction, which can boost student retention and graduation rates.
Assisting accreditation: Part of the accreditation process involves creating an in-depth self-study that examines your institution’s overall performance to identify areas for improvement. Professor performance evaluations reveal insights on teaching you can include in the self-study.
Promoting accountability: Your institution may have specific standards that faculty need to uphold. Professor evaluations determine whether faculty meet these standards, creating a culture of accountability. Evaluation practices can also keep employees committed to honing their skills, ensuring continual professional development.
Informing reviews: Faculty reviews usually occur annually to assess faculty performance and determine if they meet promotion and tenure requirements. Performance evaluation results are crucial to the review process to ensure you present their performance accurately.
The difference between evaluation for professors and lecturers
It’s important to understand the differences between the primary types of instructors in higher education, as their role will determine how best to assess their performance. Lecturers and professors both instruct students in classes. However, they differ slightly in how they serve your institution and require unique evaluation criteria:
Lecturer: A lecturer primarily spends their time teaching classroom-based courses, usually in the form of longer lectures. Lecturer evaluation should focus primarily on how the instructor manages lectures and conveys information to students.
Professor: Professors are at the highest level of an institution’s academic staff, and they often balance teaching, research, and leadership roles. Consequently, a professor’s evaluation should include how effectively they teach, contribute to their field through research, and impact the institution through service.
How to evaluate professors at your institution
Thoroughly evaluating a professor’s performance requires approaching their role from various angles. First, allow professors to submit a self-assessment containing their opinion on their strengths, achievements, improvement areas, and goals. Then, use various evaluation techniques to gather feedback about their:
Teaching
You can assess a professor’s teaching effectiveness by gathering qualitative and quantitative student metrics. Quantitative metrics include anything numeric, like student grades and retention or graduation rates. These give you an idea of how a professor’s work impacts student outcomes, but you’ll need qualitative data to uncover the why. You can distribute surveys to students and other faculty to gather their feedback and better understand a professor’s performance as an instructor.
Research
For professors who engage in research, their performance evaluations should include an assessment of research achievements. Consider the amount of research they’ve published and its impact. You can also assess the quality of research by looking at the professor’s success in acquiring external grants and funding. Additionally, consider asking students how the professor integrates their research into lectures.
Service
Part of a professor’s responsibilities includes service to the institution that goes beyond teaching and research. Some examples of service include mentoring faculty, designing curriculum, participating in committees, and organizing events. Consider the professor’s engagement in service activities and their impact on your institution. You can also send surveys to faculty to gather feedback about a professor’s service contributions.
Examples of professor evaluation questions
Use the following evaluation categories and criteria to create surveys that provide a holistic view of a professor’s abilities:
1. Subject matter knowledge
The most important element to instructor success is a broad knowledge base and a healthy enthusiasm for the subject matter they teach. Consider asking students to provide ratings for how much they agree that their professor:
Is highly invested and enthusiastic about the course material they teach and conveys a sense of excitement in lectures.
Understands the general principles of their discipline.
Provides students with a clear overview of the discipline.
Can sufficiently and accurately answer student questions regarding their discipline and subject of expertise.
Bases curriculum and assignments around the most current developments in their field.
Stays current on their field of study, actively seeks out new material, and participates in professional research.
Shows continuous growth in their field of study and encourages students to pursue similar paths.
2. Teaching methods
Effective instructors elevate their teaching abilities with new techniques and creativity. Evaluate a professor’s teaching methods by asking students if professors:
Present the required materials, techniques, and skills needed to succeed.
Clearly outline key course concepts and techniques in an organized manner.
Encourage critical thinking by asking interesting, pressing, and challenging questions.
Encourage active learning strategies in classes.
Consistently monitor student progress toward learning goals in creative ways.
Recognize and offer assistance to students experiencing academic difficulties.
3. Expectations and assessment
Professors are also responsible for creating assessments that evaluate student performance. To gauge how well a professor lays out their student expectations and assessment, you can ask students if professors:
Communicate class and assignment expectations.
Explain the writing expectations for the course.
Have clear standards of performance for course expectations.
Increase overall student understanding of course concepts.
Grade assignments fairly and in alignment with their expectations.
Grade assignments within a reasonable time frame.
Create assignments consistent with the course’s learning objectives.
Give clear and accurate feedback about student performance on assignments.
Provide students with constructive criticism on projects and written assignments.
Use a range of tools to assess student learning.
4. Professionalism
Professionalism on campus is necessary to uphold institutional standards and create a respectful campus culture. Discover how well they conduct themselves by asking students and faculty if professors:
Come prepared for every lecture.
Arrive at lectures and meetings on time.
Respect student opinions and treat everyone equally.
Handle conflicts in lectures fairly.
Graciously accept student feedback.
Dress appropriately and care for their appearance.
Continuously embody the institution’s code of conduct.
5. Overall teaching effectiveness
Include questions about a professor’s general teaching effectiveness to understand student sentiment. You could ask if the professor:
Succeeds in creating an environment conducive to learning.
Is actively concerned with student progress and learning.
Stimulates class interest in the topic at hand.
Expects a high level of performance and makes it achievable.
Is an overall effective instructor for the course’s material.
6. Student experience
In addition to closed-ended questions, you can give students space to share their thoughts and opinions without restriction. Encourage them to mention what they enjoyed most about working with their professor and areas they could improve. Ensure students understand how to evaluate their professor respectfully and explain that their answer should promote growth. Students should also understand that their responses are anonymous so they feel safe sharing their honest opinions.
Factors that influence survey responses
Asking students for feedback regarding professor performance can be beneficial, but it can also be unreliable. Various factors influence how students respond to surveys, making it harder to assess professor performance accurately. To glean valuable insights, prioritize responses from top-performing students or ask for feedback later in each student’s career.
While evaluating responses, consider:
Grading: Studies show that students who receive higher grades from professors tend to give better evaluations.
Course content: Students may evaluate professors based on how much they enjoy or understand the course content.
Demographic bias: Characteristics like race, gender, and age may contribute to how students rate their professors.
Personality: Students may prioritize a professor’s personality in course evaluations rather than their teaching ability.
How to improve response accuracy and reliability
Effective evaluation approaches can increase the reliability and validity of student feedback. Consider implementing the following measures:
Mid-course evaluations: If you’re concerned about end-of-course evaluations, hold informal evaluations earlier in the course to assess student progress. The feedback from early course evaluations allows lecturers to adjust their focus to the concepts students most struggle with.
Response anonymity: While anonymity can be a double-edged sword, it allows students to be honest without worrying about potential repercussions on their grades.
Higher response rates: Instructors receive more accurate and reliable evaluations when all their students complete end-of-course evaluations. Increase student participation by making surveys mandatory, sending reminder notifications, giving students bonus points, and even locking grades behind evaluations.
Constructive criticism: Students are more likely to give fair and accurate evaluations when they understand that the department expects respectful and constructive criticism.
Explanations: Students provide better feedback when they realize department chairs and committees use feedback for promotions and tenure. Assure them the data they provide is valuable to the institution.
Specific examples: Reduce bias and false statements by having students use specific examples alongside their criticisms. Examples may include feedback on presentation styles, learning modules, course expectations, and grading protocol.
Make professor evaluations a breeze with Watermark
At Watermark, we offer multiple award-winning software solutions to help higher education institutions with their evaluation processes. With Watermark Course Evaluations & Surveys, you can easily navigate the evaluation process. The software can help you distribute surveys to students online, increase response rates, reduce IT involvement, and quickly analyze responses to glean insights.
Data collected through Course Evaluations & Surveys seamlessly integrates with Watermark Faculty Success, a central hub for faculty activity data. In this software, you can use discovered insights to put faculty accomplishments front and center and make informed decisions regarding hiring and career progression.
