STUDENT RATINGS OF TEACHING EFFECTIVENESS (SRTE)
The SRTE is the University's standard measure of teaching effectiveness. In accordance with the July 1, 2004, recommendation of the office of the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, all faculty are asked to administer the SRTE for each section of every course. University and college policies require provisional faculty and non-continuing faculty to administer the SRTE for each section of every course.
Administration guidelines for the SRTE are published with the survey form and are based on the guidelines listed below.
- Responses to survey items must remain anonymous.
- Directions to the students are uniform across administrations.
- The instructor shall not participate in the administration, collection, or compilation of the survey results.
- The instructor shall not be present during the administration of the evaluation.
- At least two thirds of the students should be present for the evaluation to be administered.
- The responses shall be collected and returned to the appropriate unit office by the person administering the evaluation.
- The SRTE should be administered during the last two weeks of a course, but not in the same class period in which a test is given.
Supplemental Methods of Evaluating Teaching Effectiveness
University policy requires some alternate form of soliciting student feedback for candidates for tenure or promotion. More generally, many Abington faculty have benefited from supplemental methods of student feedback. For supplemental evaluations to be considered in promotion and tenure decisions, they must solicit critical as well as favorable comments (e.g., if students are asked what they found most helpful in a course, they should also be asked what was least helpful), and they must be administered in a manner comparable to the SRTE.