In higher education, student evaluation of teaching is widely used as a measure of an academic's teaching performance despite considerable disagreement as to its value. This paper begins by examining the merit of teaching evaluations with reference to the factors influencing the accuracy of the teaching evaluation process. One of the central assumptions on which student evaluation of teaching is based is that there is a relationship between student achievement and student rating of teachers. However, the findings of the majority of studies do not support this assumption. The absence of a strong link between student achievement and teaching evaluations suggests that there is scope for examining other approaches to measuring effective classroom dynamics. This paper presents such an approach based on the notion of transformational classroom leadership.
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This study describes the use of a metacognitive approach for self-assessment of teacher education students. The design of the study was guided by the principles of learning-oriented assessment and the centrality of reflection for teachers. The study comprised five case studies undertaken in five teacher education programmes. In each programme, students self-assessed at the beginning, middle and end of learning. Subgroups of students were invited to represent their learning using concept maps and were interviewed on their progression in self-assessment. Analysis indicated that students found the metacognitive approach supportive of their learning and self-assessment. Students were more aware of their learning and thinking processes at the end of the study. Further, teachers involved in the project found the method demanding yet generating useful feedback which enhanced their teaching.
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Students in the Physiotherapy Programme carried out a group project in their final year of studies. The objectives of the project were that the students learn and appreciate the process and activities involved in research, acquire deeper understanding of a topic in their professional interest, learn to work as a team, manage their own time, collaborate with others and produce a meaningful report. In the case of group work, usually the written report is assessed and the same mark is given to all members. Sometimes the supervisors' and group members' assessment of the members' involvement and participation in the project, oral presentation or viva voce contributes a small portion to the final grade of each student. This practice is limited to the assessment of the outcome of the group effort and does not reflect the process of learning by individual members. Portfolio assessment of learning involves the students themselves reflecting on and evaluating their learning and also allows teachers to evaluate individual students' learning in group tasks. In this paper, the implementation of the portfolio assessment, the criteria for the assessment of the portfolios and the students' opinions on the portfolio assessment are discussed.
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Academics are increasingly expected to be research productive. An impressive research output requires the ability to communicate in sophisticated written English in order to ensure that a publication is of an acceptable standard. In response to the demands for advanced writing skills to maintain high standards in research publications, a pilot online writing network of information (OWN) has been developed to provide academics in the School of Nursing at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University with research writing support in English. In this paper the OWN database is introduced with an explanation of the theoretical foundations and the needs analysis that shaped each link. Then, with data from two questionnaires completed by the users and interview of four users, I present a user evaluation of OWN. The questionnaires suggest that users see certain links as more useful in providing individualised writing support, while the interviewees most appreciate the complete privacy in which support could be sought. Through this description and user evaluation, I argue that academics could benefit from English language support when writing for publication, and computer technology may offer both flexibility and privacy.
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This article uses the case of designing a new course questionnaire to discuss the issues of validity, reliability and diagnostic power in good questionnaire design. Validity is often not well addressed in course questionnaire design as there are no straightforward tests that can be applied to an individual instrument. The authors propose the technique of establishing validity by deriving constructs from naturalistic qualitative research--in this case by interviewing award-winning teachers about their principles and practices. Analysis of the interview transcripts led to nine principles of good teaching, which were developed into nine questionnaire scales. Reliability was tested with Cronbach's alpha and with confirmatory factor analysis, as the use of Cronbach's alpha alone can mask issues of multi-dimensionality in scales. The concept of diagnostic power as the ability of an instrument to distinguish between related constructs is introduced. This is important in course evaluation questionnaires, as it enables relative strengths and weaknesses to be identified, which makes it possible to advise on remedial action.
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Institutional self-assessment is considered to be a crucial quality assurance mechanism in higher education. However, the criteria employed in self-assessments tend to ignore the overall organisational effectiveness of the institution. This paper describes a study which employed the effectiveness criteria contained in the Competing Values Model of Organisational Effectiveness (Quinn & Rohrbaugh, 1981, 1983) to produce a set of organisational effectiveness self-rating scales for Hong Kong higher educational institutions. The scales were developed using the behaviourally anchored rating scales (BARS) procedure. The study produced scales which address the organisational effectiveness of an institution and appear to be a useful addition to the array of quality assurance mechanisms in higher education. The paper highlights the qualitative benefits of the scale development procedure and resulting scales and notes that the procedure could be employed, and the qualitative benefits enjoyed, in other higher educational systems.
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Where courses have as an aim the promotion of reflective practice, it will enhance the achievement of the goal if the level of reflective thinking is assessed. To do this in a satisfactory way requires a reliable protocol for assessing the level of reflection in written work. This article presents a protocol that can be used to guide the allocation of work to four categories, namely: habitual action/non-reflection, understanding, reflection, and critical reflection. Intermediate categories can also be used. Detailed descriptors of each category to guide the process are provided. The protocol was tested by four assessors independently using it to grade a set of written work, and very good agreement was obtained.
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As staff developmental initiatives become increasingly common in educational institutions, the evaluation of such programmes may need careful consideration. This paper describes a staff developmental initiative in which a one-on-one mentoring service was offered as part of a funded staff development project entitled 'Effective English Communication for Teaching and Research' (EECTR). EECTR provides language support to all academic staff in a Hong Kong university. The mentoring sessions typically require a discussion of the nature of academic writing. For evaluation purposes, feedback was collected through various questionnaires which indicated that the EECTR mentoring had been a fairly successful programme. However, these traditional measures could not tell the stakeholders the impact of the mentoring process on individual clients. Thus two additional measures were taken. First, three in-depth case studies were undertaken to ascertain how individuals saw the impact of mentoring. Additionally, interviews with clients were also conducted over a two-year period. With support from the data, this paper demonstrates how multiple measures of evaluation provided an opportunity to see the dynamic interaction between general perceptions of impact and individual learning within a programme.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0260293022000001373]

This paper examines the effects of course characteristics on student ratings of university teaching. The multivariate effects of various course characteristics on student ratings of university teachers were examined by a 54322 multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) with academic discipline, class size, level of course, type of course, and mode of study as independent variables and a set of six composite student ratings as the dependent variable. Data were obtained from a university in Hong Kong and consisted of 4996 course average ratings collected from 25 departments over two academic years. Significant differences were found in course average student ratings across academic disciplines, class size groups, course levels, types of course, and modes of study. The effect sizes of the largest differences between sub-groups within each of the factors were also estimated. Academic discipline differences and class size were found to have the largest effect on student ratings, with effect sizes of 0.43-0.86 and 0.55-1.01 respectively. Implications of the findings are discussed.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0260293990240207]

The paper discusses the marking of written assignment and reports the results of the first step of an action research project conducted at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
[Copyright of Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0260293990240103 ]