Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Title
Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education
Volume
49
Issue
2
First Page
154
Last Page
164
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
School
School of Nursing and Midwifery
RAS ID
60163
Abstract
Within Australian higher education, student evaluation of teaching (SET) is regularly conducted and data are utilised for quality control and staff appraisal. Within current methodologies, students can anonymously provide further feedback as written commentary. There is now growing evidence that, once this narrative becomes derogatory or abusive, it may have the potential to create harm. To investigate staff reactions to receiving anonymous non-constructive commentary, a one group point in time design was constructed, and a survey conducted. Participants (N = 741) from a broad cross-section of Australian universities responded to Likert questions asking about their reactions. A significant impact was revealed according to age for mental health, stress and professional confidence, with younger and tenured academics indicating the most vulnerability. There were no differences across gender. Non-health disciplines with teaching loads greater than 50% reported an impact of anonymous SET on mental health and professional confidence. Being casually or seasonally employed or from an ethnic background was shown to have a significant effect on professional confidence. Findings suggest that the potential for higher education academics to be harmed via this process is a continued risk and highlights the need for review and reform of SET systems and protocols.
DOI
10.1080/02602938.2023.2195598
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Comments
Hutchinson, M., Coutts, R., Massey, D., Nasrawi, D., Fielden, J., Lee, M., & Lakeman, R. (2023). Student evaluation of teaching: Reactions of Australian academics to anonymous non-constructive student commentary. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 49(2), 154-164. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2023.2195598