University Lecturers' Perceptions of Students Evaluation of Their Instructional Practices

This article examines lecturers' perceptions of student evaluations on their instructional practices. A total of sixty lecturers from an institution of higher learning in South Africa participated in the study. Data were collected through a researcher-constructed 20-item Likert-type questionnaire. Data were analysed using frequency tables and the discussion revolved around the three research questions that formed the pillar of the study. The study established that generally university lecturers had negative perceptions of students' evaluation of their instructional practices. The study specifically revealed that while lecturers were sometimes positive about the use of results of student evaluations for formative purposes, they were strongly opposed to the use of such information for summative purposes. The study, therefore, recommends that student evaluations of teaching must always be triangulated with other multidimensional evaluation methods so as to increase validity and reliability in the evaluation of teaching effectiveness in higher education.