UNIVERSITY TEACHERS THINKING ABOUT LECTURING - STUDENT EVALUATION OF LECTURING AS AN IMPROVEMENT PERSPECTIVE FOR THE LECTURER

Student evaluation of instruction (SEI) is a common practice in higher education. Despite a great deal of progress that has been made during the last two decades of SEI-research, some questions remain unanswered. One of the unsolved problems concerns the utility of SEI, i.e., its efficacy for improving instruction. Apparently there is a need for understanding ‘how university teachers handle SEI-feedback.’ In that perspective cognitive and motivational psychology stress the importance of the so-called subjective theory of a teacher about his lecturing. This empirical study was focused on teachers' conceptualisation of lecturing, as related to student ratings. For representing a teacher's subjective theory and his interpretation of SEI-feedback, the Hiclas-algorithm of De Boeck and Rosenberg (1988) was used, corresponding to their Hierarchical Classes Model. Results indicate that the lecturer's interpretation of student ratings and his/her ‘thinking about lecturing’ are crucial elements for an effective use of SEI as an improvement strategy. It gives one explanation why student evaluation of university teaching does (or does not) change teaching behaviour. © 1991, Kluwer Academic Publishers. All rights reserved.