by students” vision in china’s higher institution

Reconsideration of “teaching evaluation by students” vision in china’s higher institution

Abstract：In china, student’s evaluation of teaching (SET) is very appreciated by

administrators, like a superstar. But I assert SET would cause strained relations

between teacher and student. In order to achieve good teaching result, the

administrators should care about the feelings of faculty, not always overemphasize the

satisfaction of student. Only in this way can achieve a win-win situation on the

teaching.

Key words：student’s evaluations of teaching (SET) china institution In

the 1927s, Remmers and Brandenburg had begun to explore students’ ratings of

instructions (Theall, 2010). Until now, the evaluation has been receiving much

attention. For instance, student’s evaluations of teaching (SET) are the primary gauge

of the teaching performance of college and university faculty in the U.S.A (Campbell,

Steiner, & Gerdes, 2005). And why teaches attach much importance to SET, it always

is related to the career rewards of tenure, promotion and merit pay (Benson & Lewis,

1994).

One hand, in china, all the universities and colleges increase university

enrollment in 1999. In order to retain and absorb more students, the administrators on

campus are adopting SET method to monitor faculty teaching, prevent shirking and

enhance teaching quality (Becker, 2000; Gray & Bergmann, 2003). However, I am

doubt about the validity and reliability of the measure. I think the evaluation between

students and faculty is a destructive game, which always can provoke conflict and

trust crisis. In china, as a teacher, you are disadvantaged groups and have to please the

students. Take me for example, after histology and embryology final exam was over,

some students failed and have a higher failing rate in their classes. Fninally, my SET

scores is the lowest. I known the reasons that some of them often were absent at the

class and stay in the dormitory to play computer games, but no one is willing to listen

to your excuse. As has been recognized by someone, faculty give the lower grades and

get worse SET (Langbein, 2008).

On the other hand, I am responsible for design the test paper of histology and

embryology. If the test paper is easy and the students will have higher expected grades

after exam and then they will pay for me “good evaluation”. On the contrary, I will

receive “bad gift”. This is standard “pay-for-performance” business model. Can we

trust the SET? The horrible SET will make the faculty give higher course ratings for

students and lead to inflation of grades eventually. The universities and colleges are

never academic place but become deal territory. Another survey (Crumbley &

Fliedner, 2002) also shows that a total of 773 administrative accounting professors

believe that a single numerical measure cannot capture all relevant evaluative data,

they do believe that SET has caused grade inflation and they are dissatisfied with their

current SET system. Even so, no one dare challenge authority of SET in our college.

What’s more, I notice a very interesting phenomenon that most of female faculty in