Resetting SET to the Goals of Higher Education: Quality Teaching or Learning?

Mieke Clement and Herman Buelens (University of Leuven, Belgium)

Like many universities, ours assesses the quality of faculty teaching with “Student Evaluation of Teaching” questionnaires. We studied the relationship of our SET-dimensions with two criteria: (1) overall teaching quality and (2) student perception of learning. Hierarchical regression analyses on the answers of 1406 students for 31 teachers reveal that the predictive power of the dimensions quite remarkably differs depending on the criterion used. Our findings invite to reflect on ways to reset SET: which criterion do we deem be most relevant? They also challenge understanding of student learning in higher education.

Critiquing Across Disciplines: Using Sustainable Assessment to Support Health Professionals to Critically Appraise Education Research.

Susan Jamieson (University of Glasgow, UK)

Health professionals are familiar with critical appraisal of medical research, to inform clinical decision-making. But when they take on the mantle of clinical teacher, they need support to apply critical appraisal skills in their second discipline, education, which has different philosophical underpinnings and measures of rigor. In an online masters’ program for health professions educators, a design priority was to use sustainable assessment (Boud & Soler, 2016) to develop learners’ ability to critically appraise education research. Self-assessment, reflection, portfolios, and embedding assessment within learning activities enabled health professions educators to evaluate education research, thereby facilitating them to practice evidence-based teaching.

The Challenge: Effective Assessment in Higher Education.

Roxana Reichman (Gordon Academic College of Education, Israel)

This study was conducted in a teacher education institution in Israel. Its purpose was to reveal the students’ opinions regarding an active process of teaching based on the Dilemma Based Model. The research question was: What are the students’ perceptions concerning the assessment of their work based on DBM? This qualitative study was based on portfolios written by 35 pre-service teachers as part of the requirements for a course on Multiculturalism. The findings, based on content analysis, show a deep understanding of dilemmas involving the topic. In this paper I present the evaluation challenges and suggest ways of coping with them.