CAUT | ACPPU
Canadian Association of University Teachers
CAUT Policies
Policy on the Use of Anonymous Student Questionnaires¹ in the Evaluation of Teaching
1
Any procedure initiated by the administration or the senior academic body to evaluate teaching performance, including any proposal to employ anonymous student questionnaires, should have the agreement of, or have been negotiated with the academic staff association, and should be incorporated in the collective agreement or faculty handbook. Academic staff associations should be aware, when negotiating the use of student questionnaires, that anonymous student evaluations of teachers may serve as vehicles for transmitting popular misconceptions, expectations and prejudices, to the disadvantage of, for example, women and visible minorities. Such procedures should be fair and include an appropriate procedure for an academic staff member to comment on any set of ratings and to contest any assessment or decision made on the basis of those ratings. Academic staff associations should provide expert advice and counsel to academic staff members in reviewing their own results, and should also support academic staff members in whose cases student ratings are being used inappropriately.
2
Procedures for the evaluation of teaching should take into account all relevant sources of information about teaching. Anonymous student ratings should never be the primary measure of teaching performance. Rather, the systematic use of a teaching dossier should be encouraged. Unless negotiated as discussed under Article 1, results of anonymous student ratings should be placed in that dossier only with the consent of the academic staff member.
3
Surveys of student opinion about teaching should not be characterized or described as if they measure teaching effectiveness. While students are uniquely placed to comment on their own reactions to what happens in the classroom, they are not in a position to assess all of the components of teaching effectiveness.
4
In post-secondary institutions where the results of student surveys are considered to be part of the individual's confidential personnel file, the results of such surveys should be accorded the same degree of protection as students' academic records. When student comments and/or survey results are published, they should not be included in the personnel file.
5
Where/when student organizations conduct anonymous student surveys and publish the results in order to assist students in the selection of their courses, academic staff participation should be optional, and no penalties direct or indirect should follow a refusal to participate. Such student-organized evaluations should not be used by post-secondary institution administrations as a means of assessing teaching performance.
1. “Anonymous Student Questionnaires” includes questionnaires on which students must identify themselves but where their identities are not revealed to academic staff members.
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