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Evaluation of faculty members in higher education has become an increasingly important aspect of the academic world due to the continuing or increasing financial constraints. Nursing faculty, therefore, must make efforts to document its effectiveness in order to garner its share of limited education resources.
Traditionally, comprehensive faculty evaluation is based on the assessment of three areas of responsibility: teaching, scholarship, and services. Although different sets of criteria are used to measure performance in each of the three domains, the fundamental principle underlining faculty evaluation includes using various sources of valid quantitative and qualitative information.
Purposes of the evaluation of faculty teaching competence are many-fold, including collecting data to be used in decisions concerning promotion, tenure, renewal, and merit awards; improving the quality of teaching; assisting faculty members to self-evaluate; improving accountability in education; meeting the criteria for the approval of the academic institution; and identifying the content areas for faculty development programs.
Key Sources for Data Collection on Teaching Competence in Nursing
Teaching in nursing encompasses classroom, clinical area, and other related functions such as informal interaction with the students before and after teaching sessions, individual student counseling and tutoring, input in course or curriculum development, and other related activities. Thus, evaluation of teaching effectiveness should be based on several sources of data such as student ratings of classroom and clinical teaching, peer evaluations, and the analysis of related materials.
Student Evaluation of Teaching
Despite various myths and dissenting opinions, student ratings of faculty teaching effectiveness, when properly obtained, are reliable and valid. Research facts isolated from more than 500 published studies spanning a 61 -year period have dispelled most of the common myths (Bell, Miller, and Bell, 1984 Centra, 1982; Coleman & Thompson, 1987 Miller, 1987; Millman, 1981; Morton, 1987 University of Arizona, 1985; Witley, 1984). However, Miller cautioned that students can only be expected to evaluate four aspects of faculty teaching competence: the teaching method or the presentation of classroom content, the fairness of the faculty member in the evaluation process, faculty interest in the student, and faculty enthusiasm in the subject content. Students are not able to evaluate the accuracy of the content or the depth, scope, and sequence of material presented. The latter are best evaluated by colleagues or experts...