Policy on Use of Student Course Evaluations

Introduction and Scope

The UCLA-administered student course evaluations are completed for each course during the quarter via online surveys. The evaluations are the formal means by which students describe their experience of a course’s content and instructor. Questions include scales and open-ended comments.

The reports are intended to help ensure UCLA courses have high quality instruction. They provide feedback to individual instructors, departments and other campus groups. This feedback can be used to refine teaching methods, alter courses or programs, make teaching assignments, and make promotion decisions.

The present policy covers the use of course evaluations by Academic Affairs within the School of Nursing. Specifically, a low performance evaluation will trigger a review of the course. Since student evaluations are not a full reflection of teaching effectiveness, additional information and context will be sought to determine what occurred and what if any changes to make.

Note that teaching performance is a part of UCLA’s employment policies, and ongoing evaluation is required by our accreditation bodies.

Process within the School

The data collection is managed by the UCLA Center for the Advancement of Teaching (CAT), and the reports are provided to Academic Affairs, currently through a Box folder accessible to the Director of Evaluations and one staff person (Belinda Huntly as of Feb 2022).

Initial Action: Director of Evaluations

The Director reviews the evaluations after each quarter, and identifies courses that have low “overall” mean scores. (The term “overall” is the response to the question “Overall - Your overall rating of the course”; see Guide to Evaluation of Instruction Program Report ) Low is defined in this policy as an overall score below 6. The course name, instructor, response rate (in raw and %), and overall scores (course and instructor) are collated and provided to the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and the Program Director(s) for the course. The instructor is informed of this process when these reports are sent. Upon request, the Director will provide the full student evaluation report, or other relevant reports (e.g., evaluations of the same course from previous years).

Review Process

In all cases of a low overall score, the course evaluation will be discussed with the instructor. The purpose of this discussion will be to collaboratively identify contributors to the low overall score and pathways for improving the student experience and supporting ongoing faculty professional development.

The discussion will be with the Program Director or Associate Dean for Academic Affairs (Associate Dean hereafter). This discussion may be via email, phone, video call or in person. The discussion will address what happened, taking into consideration the limitations of the student evaluations, and what if any changes might be implemented.

Discussion of low evaluation scores

See suggestions for this discussion.

After the discussion, the Program Director will use an online form to record the fact that the discussion was had, along with a synthesis of the outcome (“Student evaluation follow-up report”; Qualtrics survey; to be developed). The purpose of the report is to have a record that the discussion was had, but not to be a complete record of the discussion or full description of any remediation plan. Such a record was specifically requested by CCNE reviewers (discussions in 2021).

Follow-up actions

Follow-up actions may be taken by several people, including the instructor, Program Director, and Associate Dean.

• Exploring course or program delivery improvements initiated by administration:

  • Changes in program administration: other classes, communication with program or student affairs

  • Changing course schedule

• Exploring course improvements by instructor:

  • Changing course content, schedule or assessment

  • Changes within scope of syllabus

  • Changing instruction style or methods

  • Could the instructor benefit from training or mentoring?

  • What support do they need?

  • What resources are available to assist with professional growth as an effective teacher? For example, the UCLA Center for the Advancement of Teaching (CAT), UCLA Center for Education Innovation and Learning in the Sciences (CEILS), or professional nursing organizations.

At the discretion of the Program Director, the teaching assignment may be altered, particularly if the score is very low or the evaluations in some way reflect a mismatch between instructor expertise and course content.

The Program Director will inform the Associate Dean of the discussion and any outcomes, including plans for remediation or requests for other changes.

People and groups involved with review

The following three entities are included in the review process, and may take action.

Program Director

In all cases of a low overall score, the Program Director will discuss the course evaluation with the instructor. (If the Program Director has a low evaluation, the Associate Dean will initiate the discussion.)

Associate Dean for Academic Affairs

The Associate Dean is included in communications about low evaluations, but would usually not take the lead in addressing problems in one course. The Associate Dean may look for patterns of low scores with the course, instructor or program and seek to have those addressed. They may seek a peer evaluation to assess teaching performance or provide guidance to the instructor. They most frequently will communicate with the Program Director in charge of the course. However, on occasion the Associate Dean may bring up either a single or a group of low evaluations to other groups within the School, including the FEC Subcommittee on Evaluations. If any of these groups see a need for a program change they may bring this up in FEC or Curriculum Committee. Some issues may be relevant to Student Affairs, on the faculty or administration side.

The Associate Dean may discuss all issues with the Dean.

FEC Subcommittee on Evaluations

The Evaluations Subcommittee represents the faculty viewpoint, and similar to the Associate Dean is included but would usually not respond to a single low course evaluation. Since the faculty is responsible for curriculum and methods of instruction and assessment, those particular areas may be considered by the Subcommittee. The Subcommittee as representatives of the faculty may also weigh in on the process for counselling instructors with low course or instructor evaluations.

If the Subcommittee does discuss one course evaluation, they may ask the Director of Evaluations to provide similar documentation as provided to the Program Director. They may also communicate with the Program Director who can let them know whether a meeting with the instructor has happened and what the outcome was.

The Evaluations Subcommittee may bring all issues to FEC.

Committee on the Appointments, Promotions and Appraisals (CAPA) and Merit Advisory Committee (MAC)

CAPA and MAC review all course evaluations as part of reviews for personnel actions. They are not included in this process for responding to any one low evaluation score. CAPA and MAC do not have access to the Student Evaluation Follow-Up Report.

Confidentiality

Documents and information will be shared in secure, private ways. The course evaluations will only be shared with people as outlined in this policy, and care will be taken to prevent them being seen by anyone else. Discretion will be used to keep discussions confidential. For example, the Program Director may choose to not share with the Associate Dean all aspects of their conversation with an instructor . However, course evaluations cannot be kept fully confidential. Plans for remedial action may also be shared across these three entities, as appropriate and with proper discretion.

Should a student be identifiable in a course evaluation (due to the small size of a class or to self-identifying information provided by a student), the student’s identity will be held in confidence. No attempt will be made by faculty, administrators, or others in the evaluation process to contact the student. Whether identifiable or not, all students are treated with impartiality and fairness in future courses, regardless of their high or low ratings of courses and faculty. Note that a low response rate may allow the instructor to discern the identity of a student because they can see which students completed the evaluation; however, this information is not included in the evaluation report.