Cultures matter: an alternative model of teaching evaluations.

Chang, Changfu ; Zhang, Mei ; Chen, Zhuojun Joyce 等

The increasing multicultural diversity and changing cultural landscape in U.S. higher education call for a paradigmatic shift in the understanding and practice of teaching evaluation with regard to instructional and intercultural communication. This article examines the current evaluation instruments that privilege Western cultural values and tradition, re-conceptualizes the major definitions in the mainstream models, and presents the rationale and suggestions for developing an "intercultural instrument." Incorporating global perspectives in assessment of teaching and learning is a vital component in the education of global citizens in a multicultural society. [China Media Research. 2012; 8(2): 86-93]

Keywords: Teaching evaluation, assessment instrument, global perspectives, intercultural communication, instructional communication

Introduction

In the last several decades, U.S. higher education has witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of professors and students who come from other parts of the world. Faculty members with international backgrounds bring rich cultures and diversity to the classroom, optimizing their students' educational experiences in the global world. Scholars from a wide range of fields have investigated the factors that impact teaching performances and offered suggestions on how to make pedagogical improvements. However, very rarely have such studies challenged the cultural bias embedded in the assessment of an effective teacher, thereby challenging the current models. The increasing multicultural diversity and changing cultural landscape on college campuses call for a paradigmatic shift in the understanding and practice of teaching evaluations with regard to instructional and intercultural communication.

This article intends to address this critical issue that significantly influences the perceptions and evaluations of faculty teaching performances, assesses student learning, and ultimately tests educators' as well as institutions' commitment to multiculturalism and globalism. We first examine and interrogate the current evaluation instruments by focusing on how the majority of common assessment items are constructed from the perspectives of cultural values and tradition in the West, excluding diverse communication patterns of other cultures. We then present a list of suggested questions that are interculturally sensitive and inclusive while providing a rationale for each of the choices.

Literature Review

For countless colleges and universities, student evaluations of teaching (SETs) are seen as a reliable means of assessing instructors' performances, and of maintaining quality education. As such, information derived from SETs is widely used in making hiring and retention decisions (Williams & Ceci, 1997). As Glenn (2010) noted, instructors' careers "can live and die by student evaluations" (p. 1). The legitimacy of upholding SETs seems indisputable while the process of conducting SETs is simple and straightforward. Such practice suggests an increasingly popular metaphor based on a business model. According to this model, a student who invests time, energy, and financial resources for a "product"--education--should have every right to judge the "product" he/she receives or consumes. However, a search in ERIC or EBSCO would easily yield several thousands of studies on SETs, indicating the controversies and divisiveness surrounding SETs that find no parallel with any other topic concerning higher education.

Proponents argue that, despite their flaws, SETs are mostly a reliable and important measure of teaching effectiveness. In concert with this belief, an overwhelming body of research provides guidelines for improving instruction to achieve high ratings. However, critics whose voices are increasingly growing contend that SETs are capricious at best and detrimental in essence. They have found a whole array of non-instructional factors that could skew the ratings, ranging from class size, subject matter, time of day, expected grade, student class status, attractiveness of the instructor, to the structure of the questions (e.g., Boysen, 2008; Eiszler, 2002; Landrum & Braitman, 2008; Langbein, 2008; Spooren, Mortelmans, & Denekens, 2007). For instance, one study (Youmans & Jee, 2007) showed that distributing chocolate prior to an assessment leads to noticeably better evaluations; another study (Buchert et al., 2008) concluded that students do not care how well or badly the instructor performs in teaching the course during the entire semester, because the impressions those students form in the first two weeks have already determined their evaluations on this instructor.

A significant number of studies on SETs take a more critical approach. That is, they look through the lens of gender, race, ethnicity, and so on to challenge the validity and reliability of SETs (e.g., Foote, Harmon, & Mayo, 2003; Stratton, Myers, & King, 1994). Using evaluation data of 190 tenure-track faculty from a large research university, Smith (2007) came to a surprising and unsettling conclusion: whites received the highest evaluations while the blacks the lowest. One study conducted by communication scholar Donald Rubin and subsequently reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education revealed a finding that was problematic. The same oral lecture, when attributed to two different professors (one identified as a Caucasian, the other as an Asian), resulted in significant different ratings (Gravois, 2005).

Critically, yet not cynically, a number of scholars have raised the fundamental issue regarding the raison d'etre (underlying principle) of SETs (e.g., Beyers, 2008; Olivares, 2003). Given the capricious nature of the evaluations, Michael Platt articulated eloquently:

To have one's opinions trusted utterly, to deliver them anonymously, and have no check on their truth, and no responsibility for their effect on the lives of others are not good for a young person's moral character. To have one's opinion taken as knowledge, accepted without question, is not an experience that encourages self-knowledge. (see Algozzine et al., 2004, p. 114.)

Moreover, SETs only measure student perceptions instead of class realities (Centra, 2003). In a reflective piece, Beyers (2008) argued that the students' becoming frustrated and complaining about a particular course, usually an indication of unflattering evaluations, is not necessarily a negative sign, and that a good education "involves constantly discomfiting student, and good instructors are not afraid to insist on higher standards and more work" (p. 106).

Taking a middle road, a line of research has centered on how to make assessment instruments more valid and functional. Researchers evaluate what SETs can really evaluate, whether they are uni-dimensional as reflected typically in one or two "global questions" (e.g., "overall teaching effectiveness"), or multidimensional as designed in questions covering specific aspects of teaching. Suggestions have been made on how to be more inclusive of multi-faceted aspects of teaching and how to revise instruments to be more sensitive to a wide range of areas that are related to diversity of teaching (e.g., Marsh & Dunkin, 1992; Stark-Wroblewski, Ahlering, & Brill, 2007). As a response, more and more colleges and universities are making revisions, moderate or significant, to the longstanding instruments to adapt to new teaching needs and settings. For instance, one major public university on the west coast took the lead in designing and implementing over a dozen instruments catering to specific types of classes (e.g., small lectures, large lectures, and problem-solving sessions).

Notwithstanding these efforts, there is a paucity in research and therewith a glaring absence of action on the intercultural aspect concerning SETs. With the influx of international instructors and students on U.S. campuses and with on-going dialogues on multiculturalism, a series of changes in both teaching philosophies and pedagogies must take place, and indeed, be implemented (e.g., Marsh, 1983). Chen (2000) called attention to this intercultural aspect when addressing relationship building between teachers and students: "All the professors believed that teaching needs to be based on the recognition of the differences existing among students, including motivations, the ways they learn, prerequisite skills, personalities, and so on" (p. 79).

Available literature indicates that scholars in the disciplines of education, psychology, economics, and English have established the traditional body of research on teaching effectiveness and laid down the basics for SETs. However, their studies show a lack of attention given to the intercultural aspects in classroom teaching and fewer cross-discipline dialogues. Specifically, instructional communication scholars have conducted and published a number of studies that explicate differences in communication styles, time management, organizational structures, non-verbal behaviors, etc. While their studies are centered on effective teaching from a communicative perspective, their purposes seem to identify cultural differences in teaching styles in order to encourage the adoption of the American way as a means of enhancing international faculty's teaching performances. Nonetheless, the knowledge of and research on cultural differences in classroom teaching could have benefited researchers of SETs and made intercultural issues visible to SET studies.

Moreover, the almost ubiquitous presence of the international professors and students with their diverse and unique cultural backgrounds and its relation to SETs have eluded much scholarly attention, and subsequently, institutional actions are a matter of grave concern. In an effort to call attention to this new line of research, Chang (2007) examined the predominant modes of communication in the West ("goal-oriented") and the East ("relation-building"), arguing that embedded in the current model of teaching assessment is a Western mind locked in the old episteme. To continue his investigation, Chang (2009) conducted a survey on cultural experiences among international professors teaching in U.S. colleges and universities, again making the case that SETs are based on ethnocentric instruments. As a result, "in order to survive and succeed, international professors are expected to be disenfranchised and assimilated into the mainstream" (Chang, 2009, p. 42). Mindful of the transformation of demographics and its impact on instruction, communication studies on teaching-learning relationships suggest the need for new assessment regarding alternative approaches to learning in classrooms, and encourage more culturally sensitive items as part of teaching evaluations (Rubin, 2009).

Evaluation Instruments: An Intercultural Critique

Against the backdrop of the literature review, a critique on specific items is necessary. Questions used by colleges and universities vary both in number and in content. Our survey of over 60 evaluation forms indicate that most questions center on the following areas: course expectations, knowledge of the instructor, organization of the material, explanation of content, promptness in returning assignments, use of time in class, availability outside classrooms, motivation of students, overall effectiveness, and so forth. Some instruments lump the questions into specific categories, such as "instructor," "course," and "student." Under the "instructor" category, students are asked to evaluate how the instructor performs (e.g., preparedness for class, knowledge of the course, organization of the materials, and explanation of concepts and ideas). Under the "course" category, students are prompted to rate the relevancy of the course content (e.g., syllabi, assignments, examples, and tests). Under the "student" category, students are requested to assess the "objective" outcomes as well as subjective experiences of their learning (e.g., knowledge, motivation, and interest).

In general, most instruments contain questions or statements that are directed specifically to the course and the instructor; in contrast, some instruments adopt a comparative approach when constructing assessment items such as "difficulty of course compared to other courses," and "extent to which I evaluate the course highly compared to other instructors."

It is clear that even without an intercultural perspective, one can easily notice the huge discrepancies regarding how the information can be obtained from the evaluation instruments. Different course evaluation forms with different questions certainly do not assess teaching in the same way, which indicates that there are distinct focuses or agendas set up by those institutions. Examples are abundant. Questions such as "Challenge level of assigned work was ..." and "Intellectual challenge offered by the course was ..." as appearing at the beginning of one evaluation form definitely provide evidence that the institution emphasizes and rewards hard work, standing out in stark contrast with the dump-down-course-material approach commonly found in assessment instruments.

Most instruments contain a question about the use of textbooks; different wording could lead to quite contradictory evaluations. For instance, on one form the students are asked whether the course adopts "useful textbooks and assigned readings"; on another form, however, a question is whether the course includes "worthwhile and informative material not duplicated in the text." Hypothetically, an instructor who expects students to have read the assigned readings and thus incorporates a rich array of materials not duplicated in the textbook into his/her lectures, discussions, and classroom activities might get lower scores on the first form but receive higher ratings on the second form.

The limitations of current evaluation instruments become more pronounced once an intercultural perspective is introduced. Such limitations exist at two levels: the conceptual level in an implicit form, and the operational level in an explicit form. At the conceptual level, it is the unacknowledged bias as the unconscious resorting to the Western cultural tradition that expects and judges teaching performances without clearly mapping what each category would multiculturally encompass. A typical instrument with questions about organization, delivery, time management, perceived knowledge and effectiveness, as well as motivation, has to take, by and large, an intercultural dimension into account when writing assessment questions. A plethora of publications from generations of scholars has shown a wide range of differences in organizational patterns across cultures. Whereas in the West, a linear model and inductive method as well as syllogism are often used in organizing materials and making an argument, Asian cultures do not typically follow this tradition, demonstrating alternative preferences. For instance, Chinese have a different conceptualization, understanding, and practice of argumentation and emotional appeal in rhetorical studies (Garrett, 1991; Garrett, 1993; Lu, 1998). The issue of time management is also a case in point. It is widely theorized and conceptualized that in general, in line with the linear logic, the Western tradition is characterized by a "monochronic" time-orientation, i.e., doing one thing at a time; cultures in Latin America and the Middle East prefer a "polychronic" time-orientation, i.e., engaging in several tasks simultaneously (Hall, 1983; Jandt, 2010). It is quite conceivable that an international professor with a "polychronic" time-orientation receives lower ratings if he or she structures course materials and assignments based on an alternative model. At the operational level, where these concepts are operationalized into statements/questions that purportedly measure related aspects of teaching, the lack of an intercultural sensitivity is the most unsettling. To avoid a long list of problematic statements/questions on the instruments, and most importantly, the repetition with what is going to be covered in our next section, it suffices for us here to briefly critique several commonly used questions/statements in assessment instruments.

1. Organization: "Lectures /class activities are all well organized"; "The instruction is well organized"; "The pace of the course is good."

Every college student, regardless of his or her class status, is expected to know exactly what organization means. It is such an expectation that renders the statements highly misleading and culturally biased. The seemingly grasp of the signification of the term "organization" denies students' critical reflection on, and appreciation of, alternative models of organizational schemes that their international professors might have been employing in classroom teaching. In the absence of consciously crafted statements that elicit an intercultural awareness, anything that deviates from the norm can be judged by students as inferior.

2. Presentation: "Clarity of the instructor's voice is good"; "The instructor presents the course material clearly and understandably"; "The instructor interprets difficult or abstract ideas clearly."

The mentioning of "voice' is mind-boggling as it can be culturally specific in students' interpretation of the term. Without thinking critically, students tend to associate "clarity of voice" with a native speaker who speaks "perfect English." By the same token, the word "clearly" should be carefully used in an instrument. The term "clearly" might well evoke in some students an image of a native speaker. Foreign faculty's accents may affect students' perceptions of how well course materials are presented. By some logical extension, they are "hard to understand," which is often an excuse used by a student who is not self-motivated to study well.

3. Interest and Motivation: "The instructor stimulated my interest in the subject"; "I felt comfortable in this class"; "Given another opportunity, I would take another course from this instructor."

Statements that solicit certain affective responses as well as perceptions and that in turn are treated as part of what constitutes effectiveness, are generally problematic interculturally, playing to the disadvantage of international faculty. For cultural reasons, foreign professors do not get to students' comfort zone as easily as their peers do. The commonality in upbringing and social knowledge can help a native speaker bridge the gap between the educator and the educated and build a rapport to affectively involve students in the learning process more easily than international faculty (Chen, 2000). Often, students become more motivated to learn and interested in a subject matter, not solely because of how well a professor delivers the course material, but rather how "popular" and "attractive" the instructor appears to them.

4. Overall Effectiveness: "The instructor is an effective teacher"; "Overall, I would rate this instructor as a good teacher."

Nothing appears to be more impressionistic and certainly more problematic than the term "effective." Rushing through numerous statements that assess multiple dimensions in teaching, students must in the end synthesize all the information and come up with a number for what scholars call a "global question." Students are not to blame for injustices done to their professors when giving some arbitrary ratings, because a mental image of what constitutes an effective teacher in a student's mind is led by an amalgam of the preceding interculturally insensitive statements. Furthermore, even if students correctly interpret these statements and render a "deserving" number for the "effectiveness" category, it is clear that this effectiveness is grounded in a Western understanding, because alternative views of what constitutes effectiveness do not exist in current teaching assessment instruments.

5. Comparative Statements: "Overall teaching effectiveness compared with other instructors I have known"; "How difficult did you find this course compared with other courses at the same level?"

The logic behind the adoption of comparative statements makes a great deal of sense at first glance and from one cultural point of view. Through comparisons with his or her peers, an instructor's ratings appear trustworthy, tangible, and accountability-manageable. Again, these kinds of comparisons are likely to put international professors in an awkward and embarrassing position. First, students do not take a particular course twice--one from an international professor and the other from someone else--and it is hard and certainly requires some stretch of imagination for students to compare one course with another, because different courses are unique in their own ways in terms of content, concepts, varying levels of complexity, etc. More importantly, one suspects that when prompted with a comparative statement without taking into account the intercultural dimension, those other "model" professors that the students have in mind might well be individuals who are native speakers of "perfect" English.

Being Interculturally Sensitive: Suggested Assessment Questions/Statements

The above discussion points to this crucial question: Given the increasing presence of diversity in both faculty and student body in U.S. higher education, in what ways can evaluation instruments be more interculurally sensitive and inclusive? A starting point might be to revisit and re-conceptualize the construct of an "effective teacher." For instance, does it denote an assemblage of traits strictly defined and authenticated by one cultural tradition or extended beyond to a multitude of experiences, forms of knowledge, ways of living, and styles of communication that embrace diversity of both the educators and the learners?

A survey of numerous instruments indicates an encouraging sight on the horizon: more and more colleges and universities are attempting to value the unique contributions of international faculty by revamping evaluation items with insertion of interculturally sensitive statements. The following is a suggested list that we have either compiled from the existing ones or created on our own.

1. Organization: "The instructor organizes the material in a coherent way."

The key word here is "coherent" to replace the conventional choice of "clear." Assessment of coherence allows students to evaluate more fairly international professors who employ alternative organizational structures.

2. Presentation: "The instructor's presentations increased my knowledge of the subject critical thinking skills from the intercultural and global perspectives."

The key word here is "increase." To avoid possible cultural bias in words such as "clear" and even "understandable" when gauging the effects of an instructor's delivery of course material, the term "increase" is better suited, since knowledge increase is directly related to "clear" and "understandable" presentations. Another modified version could be: "The instructor presented course material in a manner that stimulated me to think critically about the subject from the intercultural and global perspectives."

3. Motivation and Global perspective: "The instructor has stimulated my thinking from the intercultural and global perspectives and offered me new viewpoints or appreciation."

Foreign faculty may incorporate an international or global perspective into the course material. In today's "global village," what used to be distinctly separated worlds--"global" and "local"--have collapsed into one unified term "glocal," the meshing of time and space. Today, a global perspective adds an indispensable dimension to every aspect of our life and learning. Other modified versions could be: "The instructor exposes me to different ways of thinking or worldviews"; "The professor is respectful of students' diverse ideas and viewpoints."

4. Course content: "The instructor includes in class worthwhile and informative material not duplicated in the text."

This could mean that the professors bring new information from other sources beyond the textbook(s) required for the class. This could also mean that the professors put course information under the global context and introduce up-to-date material accordingly. Foreign or international faculty may have advantages in bringing materials that introduce diversified views or global issues on the subject in addition to those discussed in the textbooks published by Western companies.

5. Course content and interest: "The instructor shows relevance and application of course content to stimulate student interest in intercultural issues and global affairs."

Foreign faculty may relate personal experience to certain concepts and theories to show relevance and provide students with opportunities for comparative studies. Traditionally, American students have been only interested in dominant American culture and domestic issues. Foreign faculty's cultural identities may influence students' sensitivities about culture and cultural differences. If we take intercultural differences positively in higher education, American students' contact with foreign faculty would result in positive experiences rather than frustrations. Consequently, it may help American students build up motivations to learn other cultures, and develop skills to think about domestic issues from intercultural and global perspectives.

Increasingly, many universities develop different instruments or offer optional statements that are options for instructors to add to their evaluation forms. Adding additional questions not only legitimizes several aspects of teaching practices but also makes these aspects more salient, which will positively influence student ratings (e.g., Divoky & Rothermel, 1988; Hill, Naegie, & Bartkus, 2009). As we are teaching in a more intercultural and globally-oriented environment, an instrument that calls forth the awareness of diversified ways in our daily life, experience, and knowledge construction will prepare college students better to meet the challenges from contemporary society and the professional world. In this regard, international professors and, of course, any professors could add interculturally sensitive questions to their evaluation forms. Furthermore, we recommend creating more statements as optional choices. The following are some examples. They evaluate instructors' teaching effectiveness as well as students' learning initiatives:

1. "The instructor makes an effort to adjust his/her teaching based on diverse backgrounds of the students."

2. "The perspectives of intercultural and global communication help me develop critical thinking skills in this class."

3. "The instructor's reference to his/her cultural background in classroom instruction is beneficial to my learning."

4. "I make an effort to understand the instructor's perspectives/approaches from his/her cultural background."

5. "I feel free to ask questions and express opinions in this class from the perspectives of my cultural background and worldview."

Conclusion

As we make a push for developing interculturally sensitive instruments, we are cognizant of the fundamental question: what is the problem with the current approach? One might argue that the U.S. higher education needs to be based on American culture and international faculty in the U.S. should follow various instructional strategies and styles that work for their audience, the American students. However, in contemporary American society the definition of a typical American student is interculturally or multiculturally contested and negotiated given the diverse student body. When we reinforce the traditional idea of effectiveness based on a constellation of known factors and blindly follow these measures based on the dominant American ideology, we run the risk of perpetuating the bias by ignoring the increasing diversity in the classroom. Therefore, more fundamentally, it is imperative for faculty members to call for the awareness and existence of different cultural traditions and philosophies of teaching through their embodied performance, or what we call diversity and multiculturalism in action. Accordingly, the present article attempts to revisit and re-conceptualize the major definitions in the mainstream model and provides suggestions to the construction of an alternative instrument.

To support such a new paradigmatic shift before a concrete step can be taken toward designing and implementing a more interculturally sensitive and ultimately a fair assessment instrument, it is our belief that administrators, faculty, and students need to make concerted efforts to gain interest and knowledge in global issues. The vision of Rajasingham (2004) for a "global virtual university" reiterated the importance

of "education that prepares us for life in a global society" (p. 415). In his book Educating Global Citizens in Colleges and Universities: Challenges and Opportunities, Stearns (2009) stated, "Hiring faculty with global competence, or a willingness to move in the direction, remains a vital component of a global education program" (p. 61). Faculty may start the process with general studies courses that have the potential to engage students in critical thinking and global citizenship.

On a parallel vein, students should first and foremost achieve "intercultural literacy." Intercultural literacy adds another dimension of qualifications to the student, who is not only a critical and responsible individual in the traditional sense, but an open-minded global citizen as well. Rubin (2002) challenged the very definition of a native speaker of English in the U.S., a nation of immigrants and children of immigrants. He offered the following recommendations for responsible and effective communication with foreign professors, doctors, and executives: talking about language and cultural differences, responding empathically, focusing on what can be understood, listening actively, taking a stand against prejudice, and using patience (pp. 134136). Understanding differences in cultural characteristics and verbal and nonverbal communication can benefit intercultural communication and classroom instruction in global communities. Stearns (2009) suggested ways to help American students learn to think from global perspectives, including expanding study abroad opportunities, increasing international student admissions, revising domestic higher education curriculum with global perspectives in every subject, and establishing long-term international joint education programs.

The bottom line: it is legitimate, even essential, to ask that successful students learn certain data and habits of mind that allow a more informed approach to key global issues. That this will not in fact uniformly produce students who like the global world they live in goes without saying--no learning results assures a broader unitary outcome of this sort. The more subtle point is that global citizenship itself cannot legitimately be confined to any particular set of values.... The goals ask that American higher education reach out, as appropriate, rather than retreat to domestic isolation in the face of new challenges and tension abroad. They ask that American higher education add a fundamental criterion to what it seeks from its own students, partially redefining the nature of liberal education in the process. (Stearns, 2009, p. 28)

The current study of teaching evaluations has limitations because it examines the SET instruments used to evaluate traditional face-to-face classroom instruction and may not be applicable to online teaching, is mainly based on quantitative data, and does not take certain variables into account, such as class size (number of students in class) and class type (labs vs. lectures; elective vs. required; general studies vs. major courses). Since this is an exploratory study, the proposed SET questions mentioned above only revised wording but could not escape the constraints of the language used by existing SET instruments under the discussion. We hope that this article can stimulate intellectual dialogues and academic discussions in the global era of diversity and multiculturalism.

We argue that intercultural and global perspectives have become an essential part of American higher education. The teaching provided by international instructors may be a positive factor to enhance the global education programs and to reach the goal of educating productive global citizens in colleges and universities. It is necessary to continue to interrogate and revamp the philosophy and criteria of teaching evaluation. The next step of this ongoing project is to develop a study that further revises this proposed interculturally and globally sensitive instrument and conducts a comparative assessment between the alternative instrument and the mainstream model.

* An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual convention of the National Communication Association in 2009.

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Changfu Chang, Millersville University of Pennsylvania

Mei Zhang, Missouri Western State University

Zhuojun Joyce Chen, University of Northern Iowa

Correspondence to:

Changfu Chang, Ph.D.

Department of Communication and Theatre

Millersville University of Pennsylvania

Millersville, PA 17551

[email protected]

Mei Zhang, Ph.D.

Department of Communication Studies, Theatre and Cinema

Missouri Western State University

St. Joseph, MO 64507

[email protected]

Zhuojun Joyce Chen, Ph.D.

Department of Communication Studies

University of Northern Iowa

Cedar Falls, Iowa 50614

[email protected]