American University Student Evaluation of Teaching: A Comprehensive Guide

Student Evaluations of Teaching (SETs) are a vital component of the feedback loop that informs and improves instructional practices in higher education. They offer students a structured opportunity to provide feedback on their learning experiences, allowing instructors to reflect on their strengths and identify areas for growth. This article delves into the purpose, process, and evolving landscape of SETs, with a focus on the guidelines and considerations relevant to American University.

The Significance of Student Evaluations of Teaching

Student Evaluations of Teaching (SETs) are an important tool for calibrating instructional practices and reflecting on our successes and areas for improvement as instructors. Constructive feedback in these evaluations can help you identify elements of your course that are promoting or inhibiting students’ achievement of course learning outcomes. Although they may have participated in the evaluation process in the past, many students do not understand the function of SETs. Explaining the significance and purpose of SETs will increase their salience for students.

Communicating the Value of SETs to Students

Before asking students to complete the survey, explain to students what SETs are, what role they play in your professional career, what kind of feedback you are interested in receiving (e.g., specific and actionable), and how you will utilize it. There are a variety of ways to share information about SETs with students. You could include information about SETs, or the importance of feedback in general, in your syllabus so that students are aware of them from the start of the semester. When it comes time to complete the SETs, send a written announcement to students encouraging them to complete the SETs or letting them know that you will be providing time in class for their completion. This course values your continuous feedback throughout the semester.

Syllabus Language and Announcements

Instructors can integrate information about SETs into their syllabus. Here are a few examples:

Ongoing Feedback: I encourage you to provide feedback throughout the course, and I will regularly provide opportunities for you to do so. I am committed to creating a learning environment that fosters your success.
Completing the anonymous SETs at the end of the semester is a valuable opportunity to share your overall thoughts on the course and my teaching.
Your feedback is important! Completing the Student Evaluations of Teaching (SETs) at the end of the semester is a valuable opportunity for you to share your thoughts on this course and my teaching. Information about accessing the online SETs will be provided at the end of the semester, and we will set aside time during the last week of class to complete them if you choose. I encourage you to take the time to complete the SETs.

Types of Questions and Data Usage

It can be helpful to explain the different types of questions to students and what the data is used for. Emphasize that, while open-ended comments will only be read by their instructor, responses to the Likert-type (multiple choice) questions are viewed by both instructors and department heads. Explain that the open-ended comments are an opportunity for students to indicate elements of the course that they found helpful and suggest changes to elements of the course that are not working well. Distinguish these from the Likert-type questions, which can play an important role in decisions relating to an instructor’s tenure, promotion, and reappointment.

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The Importance of Student Feedback

Regardless of when and how you discuss SETs with students, let students know that their feedback matters! A significant concern with SETs is that a low response rate will result in unrepresentative data. Just as with online reviews of businesses, those that had a negative experience may be most motivated to provide feedback. Before students begin the survey, explain the purpose and value of SETs, and highlight how they are meaningful to you and your future teaching. If you are teaching a course that does not meet synchronously (e.g., online, asynchronous), it is recommended to send an initial message through Canvas and at least one reminder to students to encourage their completion of the SETs.

Interpreting and Utilizing SET Data

Before reviewing your SET data, recognize that SETs are just one instrument you have access to for feedback on your teaching and they are prone to bias. As you review the SET data, prioritize feedback that is actionable; often students share feedback on course modality or other aspects of the course that you cannot change. It is important to consider feedback that is (a) positive and helpful for the future and (b) negative and helpful for the future. Negative feedback that is not constructive or irrelevant to your teaching should be deprioritized. As you prepare to act on your students’ feedback, document how you have used the results to improve your course. These records can be helpful to share with future students, both to demonstrate how you have adjusted the course based on student feedback and to indicate that you value their feedback. It can also be helpful to share with your department head or chair, to show that you are attentive to student feedback and interested in continually improving your courses.

Beyond SETs: A Holistic Approach to Teaching Evaluation

After a thorough examination of the teaching review process, the Faculty Senate-commissioned Beyond SETs Task Force found that the use of a teaching portfolio for the review of teaching would allow faculty to “demonstrate teaching excellence in a variety of ways” (Faculty Manual, p. 37) beyond the singular use of student evaluations of teaching (SETs). A teaching portfolio is a “factual description of a professor’s teaching strengths and accomplishments… [that] includes documents and materials that collectively suggest the scope and quality of a professor’s teaching performance” (Seldin, Miller & Seldin, 2010, p. 4). A teaching portfolio provides an in-depth documentation of teaching that will allow you to showcase and contextualize your teaching, situated within your department, school, and field.

Components of a Teaching Portfolio

To ensure a comprehensive examination of your teaching, you should include a variety of evidence when gathering and creating materials for your teaching portfolio. Just as you include a list of publications to demonstrate your scholarship, so too should your teaching portfolio provide documentation of your teaching accomplishments. Based upon the Beyond SETs Task Force’s work, there are a variety of items you can include in your teaching portfolio under three assessment categories: self, peer, and student. Faculty must submit a full teaching portfolio for all faculty actions at American University, whether tenure-track, tenured, term, or on a continuing appointment. SET numeric scores: OIRA has made longitudinal reports and semester summary SET reports available in your Blue account. You should upload these reports as part of your file. Note: CFE does not currently offer guidance on reports from student committees who observe your teaching.

Student and Instructor Responsibilities in the SET Process

American University collects student feedback regarding their academic experience through Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) surveys available at the end of most AU courses. Closed SET surveys may only be reopened by the SET Office with express permission in writing from the instructor. Students: Completing a SET survey is an important responsibility. Instructors: Completing SET surveys is very important for your instructors. Instructors SET results have implications for granting Tenure and promotions, in addition to other human resource decision-making. AU: SETs provide important information for the University regarding how courses and instructors are perceived across the community. Student names or individual responses outside of comments, are not included in any report. Deidentified student comments are reported on the private instructor report, but may be provided to other university officials for planning and assessment purposes.

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Accessibility and Completion of SETs

First, SET surveys do not populate a student account until the survey is live. Additionally, SET are not available for a variety of other reasons, such as low enrollment, defined as fewer than 6 registered students. Each SET survey takes approximately 5-10 minutes to complete. If necessary, you can save your responses and return to it any time for submission before the survey close date. The SUBMIT button must be clicked to finalize the survey. Full-term courses follow the same schedule. These SET surveys close on the final reading day published in the AU academic calendar. Instructors can change the timing of your survey.

Addressing Technical Issues

My survey closed before I was able to complete it. If your survey has expired, please reach out to your instructor. Instructors may reopen a survey at their discretion; however, timing of the request makes a difference. Instructors may not reopen a survey if final grades are submitted.

The Evolving Landscape of Teaching Evaluation

A new consensus is beginning to emerge on how to evaluate college teaching. Research has consistently shown that traditional methods, which rely heavily on student evaluations of teaching, do not accurately measure teaching effectiveness. An AAUP survey of 9,314 faculty found that less than half believed in the validity of student evaluations, and an influential 2020 paper found that even validated survey instruments can lead to unfair outcomes. And yet, the lack of a widely accepted alternative has left many higher ed institutions assessing instruction in ways that are both deeply unpopular and methodologically unsound.

The Need for Modernization

There has to be a better way to evaluate college teaching; we can’t just keep numbing the pain.The good news is that the repertoire of available methods for evaluating teaching effectiveness is finally starting to expand. Over the past decade, tremendous strides have been made to modernize how colleges assess instruction in any modality. Early progress was forged by:

Over $5 million in research funding through two landmark NSF grants: DeLTA at the University of Georgia and TEval at Colorado-Boulder, University of Kansas, and UMass Amherst.
Influential support for reform from higher ed organizations such as AAUP, AAU, and the National Academies, as well as disciplinary associations like the American Sociological Society.
Reforms at vanguard institutions, such as the Holistic Evaluation of Teaching initiative at UCLA and the Teaching Evaluation Task Force at the University of Oregon.

The 2025 publication of Transforming College Teaching Evaluation marked a turning point in the sector-wide movement for change. The TEval approach is now widely recognized as the “gold standard” in teaching evaluation, and dozens of institutions have adapted their methods over the past five years.

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Implementing Modern Approaches

“The research on how to evaluate teaching quality is well-established, but it isn’t being put into practice.”The question facing most institutions today is not what should replace traditional evaluation systems but rather how to implement modern approaches within a particular context. As one change leader expressed, “The research on how to evaluate teaching quality is well-established, but it isn’t being put into practice. We saw our task not as coming up with a new system of evaluation but as change managers to understand why people weren’t adopting best practice.”

Stages of Teaching Evaluation Reform

Despite significant differences, my conversations with teaching evaluation leaders evinced a strikingly familiar pattern of change across a range of institutional settings. In particular, I found that teaching evaluation reform generally follows this six-stage pattern:

Someone within the institution recognizes a problem with traditional teaching evaluations and commits to doing something about it.
An objective and strategy for change is determined, and an official channel for making change is established at the department, school, or university level.
A research-informed framework that defines effective teaching across multiple dimensions is adopted.
Structures, guidelines, and policies for evaluating multiple sources of evidence are formalized.
The new evaluation process is evaluated using real data and revised over time.
The new evaluation process adopts modern technologies and reaches a sustainable steady state.

Making meaningful changes to the way teaching is evaluated does not have to be a long, arduous, or arcane process forged in isolation. By learning from reform efforts that have worked for others, institutions can confidently chart their own next steps toward change.

Key Features of Modern Teaching Evaluation

“Modern” approaches to teaching evaluation have essentially two key features:

Multiple dimensions of effectiveness. A key feature of any valid assessment instrument is that it clearly defines the construct to be measured. Student course evaluations tend to ask students to rate an instructor’s overall “quality” and are often boiled down to just one number. To clarify what an institution means by “good” teaching, modern approaches to evaluation use a framework to specify multiple “dimensions” or “elements” of effective teaching that align with research-informed practices. These frameworks are often called “teaching quality frameworks” or “teaching effectiveness frameworks” and usually have between four and seven distinct dimensions, sometimes with subdimensions or practices within each. TEval’s framework, for example, has seven dimensions: goals, content, and alignment; teaching practices; class climate; achievement of learning outcomes; reflection and iterative growth; mentoring and advising; and involvement in teaching service, scholarship, or community.
Multiple sources of evidence. Modern approaches rarely discontinue the use of student course evaluations altogether. Instead, they insist that teaching is too complex to be evaluated by any one metric. The aim is therefore to encourage data triangulation by compiling a portfolio of evidence that can speak to a wide range of instructional competencies. Instructors are often asked to provide evidence to support each dimension of effective teaching within a given framework (as opposed to evidence of overall “effectiveness” or “quality”). They are also encouraged or required to provide evidence from multiple “lenses” or “voices,” of which there are three: the instructor or self lens (such as a CV or teaching statement), the student lens (such as course evaluations or samples of student work), and the peer or third-party lens (such as a classroom observation or a peer review of course materials).

Traditional vs. Modern Approaches

By contrast, “traditional” approaches rely primarily or exclusively on student course evaluations. While traditional approaches may also require faculty to submit other documents, such as a teaching statement, it is the student survey results that ultimately matter in practice. Traditional approaches evaluate teaching “quality” in the abstract, deferring to the subjective definitions of student survey respondents and evaluation reviewers. Even certain implementations of teaching portfolios can thus be considered traditional if there is no rubric by which the documents within the portfolio are evaluated and weighted (which generally results in once again falling back on student survey scores in practice).

The Importance of Actionable Feedback

A further difference is that, in most cases, traditional approaches to teaching evaluation are primarily summative and do not emphasize actionable feedback to instructors under review, if they provide feedback at all. Modern approaches seek to align evaluation with development. While they are still used summatively to make decisions regarding tenure and promotion, modern evaluation systems also provide formative feedback to guide instructional improvement over time.

Institutions Leading the Way in Teaching Evaluation Reform

Many institutions have already started to transform the way teaching is evaluated on their campus. These models can help build confidence that change is possible as well as provide concrete resources about the multiple paths change can take.

Institutions that have adopted reforms include:

Appalachian State
Bates College
Boise State
Clemson
Colorado State
Dalhousie University (Canada)
Northwestern University
Penn State
Texas Tech
UC Irvine
UC San Diego
UCLA
University of Baltimore
University of Colorado Boulder
University of Delaware
University of Georgia
University of Illinois
University of Kansas
University of Massachusetts Amherst
University of Oregon
University of Virginia
University of Washington
Wake Forest University

Initiating Change: The Role of Change Leaders

An individual or group becomes deeply dissatisfied with traditional approaches to teaching evaluation and commits to doing something to fix it.Potential reformers learn about modern teaching evaluation systems used at other institutions and come to believe that the problems they’re facing are essentially solvable.Every change initiative needs a champion to drive it. “Somebody has to have a vision and passion to make change,” one reformer told me.

Identifying Change Leaders

Change leaders for teaching evaluation reform come from a variety of different positions within an institution, including:

Faculty, including teaching faculty and department heads
Academic personnel committees or faculty governance bodies
Teaching center directors or staff
Dean’s or provost’s offices
Education research centers, such as UGA’s SEER

Interestingly, the change leader on many campuses is not housed in the same unit that “owns” the existing evaluation process. While buy-in at the policy level from process owners is commonly sought, evaluation “owners” and evaluation “reformers” are frequently two distinct groups.

Motivations for Reform

Motivations for reform depend heavily on the role of the change leader. There is not one “right” way to articulate the pain points associated with existing evaluation systems, in part because the “existing system” at one institution is never identical to the “existing system” at another. Another way to frame this point is: modern approaches to teaching evaluation are seen as a corrective to a wide array of challenges facing higher education today.

Here are some of the common threads I heard about what tends to motivate interest in modernizing teaching evaluation.

Dissatisfaction with student evaluations of teaching, including widespread awareness of bias, disagreements with specific questions on the student survey instrument, discontent with how the surveys are used on campus (e.g., made public to students during registration for the next semester), and concern with grade inflation linked to a tacit agreement between students and instructors in which good grades are exchanged for good evals.
A desire to tell a more accurate and complete story of one’s teaching that can help others understand more fully what one does and appreciate its value. In particular, faculty are concerned that existing evaluation processes are insufficient to assess the breadth of work performed by teaching stream or adjunct faculty, who are often subjected to the same evaluation process as their research stream colleagues.
An interest in structure, transparency, accountability, and safeguards from personal politics. Faculty continue to be worried that opaque evaluation systems open them up to personal vendettas, petty grievances, subjective whims, and other factors that do not relate to their actual job performance and qualifications.
An intrinsic desire to spend more time developing as a teacher, which can be difficult to prioritize when existing evaluation systems so heavily prioritize research. Modernizing teaching evaluations can support moving to a “three bucket” approach to evaluation, in which minimum levels of accomplishment are defined separately for research, teaching, and service (as opposed to all three being lumped together in one “bucket”).
Discontent with teaching being undervalued in higher education, especially when compared to research. Teaching centers see evaluation reform as an opportunity to advocate for their institution’s teaching mission and as a rare avenue for putting teaching on a more equal footing with research-for example, in their relative weight in tenure and promotion decisions.

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