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Guidelines for the administration, use, and interpretation of the "Student Perception of Teaching" (SPOT) evaluation

Revised by the Faculty Senate spring 2000 and spring 2004

The reliability of data gathered by way of student evaluation instruments depends, in part, on the establishment of a set of common practices for administration and use. The following statements constitute a set of guidelines for the administration and use of SPOT.

1. Administration
2. Analysis and reporting
3. Guidelines for appropriate use of SPOT results
4. Warnings against inappropriate use of SPOT results
5. Guidelines for interpretation of SPOT results

A. Administration

1. Administration of the instrument shall ordinarily be conducted during the last ten class days of the semester (last five class days in a summer session) at a time convenient to the instructor. Administration at other times will be determined by agreement of the dean, the department chairperson and the faculty member. Days when tests are being given or returned shall be avoided when possible.
2. SPOT shall ordinarily be used by all instructors in all courses every semester including summer sessions. Paper versions of SPOT will be used in traditional classroom settings, and online courses will use an online version of SPOT. Recognizing, however, that some courses rely heavily on specialized, non-classroom learning experiences (e.g., field-based; hospital-based; laboratory-based; performance-based), exceptions may be established at the departmental level by mutual consent of a faculty member and the appropriate chairperson. In such cases, some method of student evaluation shall be implemented by the department chairperson.
3. Should departments wish to use additional evaluation instruments, these departmental instruments shall be administered after the administration of SPOT.
4. Administration of the paper SPOTs shall be delegated to an individual other than the instructor. That individual may be a student or another faculty member.
5. A brief standardized statement of instruction shall be presented to each class prior to the administration of SPOT.
6. During the administration of the paper SPOTs, the instructor shall leave the classroom and its vicinity.
7. Departments shall avoid practices which compromise student anonymity (i.e., student names and/or identification numbers shall not appear on evaluation forms).
8. Following administration of the paper SPOTs, the evaluation forms shall be sealed in an envelope and returned immediately to the departmental office. Department chairpersons will keep these secure and will forward them for processing. No analysis or interpretation is to be made by anyone prior to processing of the SPOT forms by Computing Services.

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B. Analysis and reporting

1. Academic departments/units shall deliver the administered forms, with blank forms removed, to Computing Services by the last working day of final exams (within one week of final exams for summer sessions) for analysis. The analysis will not be done until after all grades have been submitted to the registrar.
2. Three copies of a course section summary (for each instructor, if team-taught) shall be prepared; one for the instructor, one for the department chairperson, and one for the instructor's dean. This summary shall contain, for each item Q1 through Q16 and for any optional supplemental items the percentage of responses in each response category. For Q16 the summary shall contain the individual's response mean, the individual's response standard deviation, the individual's minimum and maximum responses, the number of students enrolled in the section, the number of students responding, the departmental response mean, and the departmental response standard deviation. In addition, the instructor shall receive one copy of the response frequencies of all SPOT items, including the demographic information.
3. Computing Services shall also provide to each instructor and his or her department chairperson and dean a Question 16 Section Summary for each section evaluated by SPOT. That summary shall contain:
   1. course and section number, instructor's name, and semester (or summer session);
   2. the section mean on Question 16;
   3. a histogram of the responses to Question 16 by students in this section.
4. Every personnel action recommendation for reappointment, promotion, tenure, or post-tenure review should contain a summary, in a standard format, of the individual's SPOT results for Q16 (at least) over the most recent two-and-one-half years, together with a visual representation of trends. (An accumulation of Question 16 Section Summaries over that period would accomplish this.) All RTP recommendations shall include a qualitative interpretation of SPOT results by the department chairperson, and may include—at the individual's discretion—the individual's own qualitative interpretation. All statistical calculations and quantitative analysis processed by anyone other than Computing Services (which is discouraged) must be clearly identified as such.

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C. Guidelines for appropriate use of SPOT results

1. Data from individual faculty gathered through the use of SPOT shall be treated with confidentiality and with recognition of the need for continued study of the meaning and validity of these data. The data shall not be released by anyone other than the faculty member to anyone who is not directly involved with evaluation for the purpose of reappointment, promotion, tenure, post-tenure review, or annual departmental review, or to anyone who is not directly involved with the development of norms, without the written permission of the faculty member. Each department shall use a release form that will enable instructors to designate other individuals or groups who may have access to evaluation information. In addition, quantitative data shall not be released from the department, or comparable administrative unit, without an accompanying written interpretation of the data by the appropriate evaluating officer and, if he/she chooses, by the faculty member. The evaluating officer's interpretation shall explain how an instructor's scores compare with peers in the same department, discipline, or course assignment, as appropriate. Because numerous studies have indicated that both peer and student evaluations are necessary for the equitable evaluation of teaching effectiveness, it is strongly suggested that peer and student evaluations be given similar emphasis in personnel recommendations.
2. The Evaluation Committee of the Faculty Senate is charged with regularly reviewing both student and peer evaluation procedures, and with reporting and making recommendations for improvement to the Senate.
3. Instructors shall be given no access to individual response forms prior to submission of grades and completion of processing by Computing Services.
4. In the case of a formal appeal of a reappointment, promotion, tenure, or post-tenure-review recommendation, all parties involved directly in the appeal process shall be allowed access to the archived data pertinent to that case.
5. Individual SPOT results, when combined with qualitative interpretation by the department chairperson and with peer evaluations of teaching, can contribute to measuring an individual's teaching effectiveness and to identification of areas of strength and areas where improvement is possible. Under those conditions, SPOT results are appropriately used for annual merit evaluation summaries, consideration for salary raises, RTP, and post-tenure-review decisions.

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D. Warnings against inappropriate use of SPOT results

1. Standard deviations that are reported by section (resp., department) for each item measure the extent to which student responses are "scattered" within that section (resp., department). They do not measure the manner in which instructor means are distributed, hence should not be used to conjecture what percentile an instructor's mean score represents (or even how good or how bad a mean score is).
2. Means for the sixteen SPOT items must not be "averaged" to produce a "combined SPOT score."
3. Mean scores for two or more courses must not be averaged to obtain a "semester SPOT score" for an individual.
4. Averaging SPOT scores from several different courses across several semesters to obtain an "overall individual SPOT score" is improper.
5. Direct comparisons of ratings from the version of SPOT used from fall 1992 through summer 2004 to ratings from the revised version implemented in fall 2004 are not appropriate.

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E. Guidelines for interpretation of SPOT results

Guidelines for SPOT ratings collected 1992-2004:

1. There is strong evidence that the SPOT questions as a whole give a valid measure of characteristics of effective teaching, and that the results are reliable. Moreover, there are ample reasons to support the use of the Question 16 section mean as the best single measure of student perception of teaching.
2. SPOT scores should, whenever possible, be viewed in the context of the immediately preceding five semesters. Comparisons should be general and should not ascribe meaning to the precision with which means are reported. (For example, a mean of 4.22 on Question 16 for a certain course might properly be described as lying in the second highest quintile of UNCW Question 16 scores, but should not be viewed as different from a score of, say, 4.18.)
3. The receipt of a Q16 section mean in the lowest quintile is not necessarily an indication of poor teaching. Only 2.6% of student responses campus-wide to Question 16 are "poor", and if every student were to answer "average" to Question 16, the mean (3.00) would lie in the lowest quintile. However, receipt of Question 16 means in the lowest quintile over a period of several semesters may indicate an opportunity for improvement. Examination of results of other SPOT items, consultation with the department chairperson, and peer evaluations may reveal ways to improve student perception of an individual's teaching.

Guidelines for SPOT ratings collected from the revised version implemented in fall 2004:

Revised SPOT questions have been selected from reliability-tested instruments at UNCW and other institutions, and have been edited by the best judgment and experience of UNCW faculty. Revisions to the 1992-2004 SPOT instrument have been made in every case to improve the philosophy of the survey as a whole, the survey questions themselves, and the quality of the information collected.