A guide to evaluating teaching, courses, and programs of study is presented. Basic considerations in planning and conducting evaluations in higher education are reviewed, including information sources, methods, and data reporting. The processes of self-evaluation by teachers and evaluation by colleagues and students are examined. Sources of…

The professional development and evaluation of university academic staff members is discussed in an attempt to clarify the processes by which evaluation and professional development activities may become acceptable and helpful. Also presented are the student evaluation of teaching and the interrelationship between evaluation instruments and the…

In fall 1984, a study was conducted to identify current instruction-related faculty development practices within Illinois's community colleges and to investigate the methods used to evaluate these practices. Data were collected from faculty development directors, academic administrators, and full-time teaching faculty in a two-stage process.…

In 1979, El Camino College revised its faculty evaluation procedure, impelled by concerns over the severe consequences and resultant rarity of unsatisfactory ratings, the reluctance of faculty to evaluate their peers, and the high requirements of faculty time. The new procedure includes the following components: (1) options allowing tenured…

Recent research (1978-1982) on student evaluations of teaching is reviewed, including: influence of background variables pertaining to the student, the teacher, and the learning environment; the dimensions of the teaching being evaluated; the validity of students' evaluations; the "Doctor Fox" effect and its implications for validity; the…

The articles in this collection focus on processes for evaluating community college faculty and staff and highlight successful and unsuccessful evaluation practices. The collection includes: (1) "A Conceptual Framework for Staff Evaluation," by Al Smith; (2) "Evaluation of Full-Time Faculty," by Lawrence H. Poole and Donald A. Dellow; (3)…

Information for newly appointed heads of graduate departments of psychology is presented as background material for the 1974 Chairman's Workshop. Topics include the following: the budgetary situation, pressures for increased teaching loads, effects upon recruiting faculty, faculty morale, graduate and undergraduate student morale, the intellectual…

The use of college staffing strategies to reduce staffing expenditures, to reallocate staffing resources, or to limit the time commitment of resources to a position is discussed, based on the literature and data from the Project on Reallocation in Higher Education. Control of the decision to create a position or hire replacements for departing…

The concept of planning for the most effective utilization of faculty resources in higher education is beginning to receive prominent attention. Factors contributing to the current interest include decreased mobility for faculty, pressures for accountability, accent on student learning, research on faculty members, and concerns for integrating the…

As the accountability movement has brought forth renewed interest in the quality of teaching and new demands for faculty evaluation, it could be expected that the relationship between the two would have created the foundation for a rigorous program of faculty evaluation. Instead, educators continued a fruitless search for qualities and behaviors…

A bibliography of materials authored, coauthored, or edited by Paul L. Dressel on programs and principles in the evaluation of higher education is presented. Entries are from 1939 through 1980. Topics include the following: curriculum development, external and nontraditional graduate programs, professional development for institutional…

The need for objectivity in evaluating faculty is briefly addressed, and a model by which professional activities may be quantified is presented. A list of possible activities ranked in groups of equal point value, by which faculty can generate merit points, is presented. An attempt was made to equalize the potential point production values in…

The process by which the sociology department at the University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, has changed character and resolved situations of conflict and polarization is examined. The sociology department experienced rapid growth and the university as a whole shifted from teaching as a single function to teaching and research. It is suggested…

The focus of the literature in this review is on schools of education and teacher educators. References are included on major works on the topics, and central questions and issues are raised. The factors which make it difficult to arrive at consensus about the quality of teaching in higher education are outlined along with various definitions of…

In a study at the University of Illinois, student written comments to four open-ended questions in end-of-semester student evaluations of 60 courses from ten different fields, taught by instructors of different ranks, were analyzed and classified into 22 categories. Nearly two-thirds were about the instructor, and one of four comments were on…