Don:
    We do have a statistical package available for faculty to appraise the
validity of their tests, which is A measure of teaching effectiveness (If a
prof can construct questions which separate the high, medium, and low
mastery students from one another and this is statistically verifiable, this
surely is an important measure of one's ability to evaluate students and
also reflects on the prof's mastery of his/her field to be able to do this.)
    I encourage all faculty to use three OBJECTIVE measures to evaluate both
their tests and themselves:  the Spearman-Brown index, the exam's difficulty
index (mean over the max), and N (the number of students s/he teaches; the
AACSB has or used to have definitions of how many students are considered at
both undergrad and grad levels to constitute a full teaching load; I suspect
that ALSB members would show up very well when using this yardstick to
measure their teaching on a quantitative level.
    I suggest these three measures be ADDED or supplemental to the student
evaluations may bring some objectivity to student "evaluations" which some
consider popularity/student friendly measures of teaching prowess.
                     Bruce Fisher
>We are (finally) re-evaluating our form for student evaluation of faculty
>teaching.  A couple of questions:
>
>1.    Are you at a school where the faculty is generally pleased with the
>form that is in use? If so,
>
>2.    What kinds of "demographic" questions has your school found useful?
>E.g., does it provide you with useful data to ask about (a) gender, (b) age,
>(c) race or ethnicity, (d) other?  And has it been statistically useful to
>ask about grade point average, whether the course is required, and what the
>student's grade expectations are?
>
>3.    Has there been a deliberate effort to increase the amount and quality
>of student comments on evaluation forms (and has it worked)?  (We've noticed
>here that the comments have been declining in number and length in the past
>ten years.)
>
>I would also like to hear from anyone whose institution consistently uses
>other means of evaluating teaching effectiveness in a way that the faculty
>finds satisfactory.
>
>Please respond to ALSB talk or send an email to me at [log in to unmask]  I
>will share all responses.  Many thanks.
>
>Don Mayer
>Oakland University
>