Student Rating of Instruction (SRI) surveys produce useful information about some facets of teaching practice, but use of SRI data - and faith that they are useful - varies widely among institutions. Part of the reason often lies in the way the information is reported to its potential users. How might new approaches for presenting and investigating SRI data enable us to uncover and tell our teaching narratives more accurately and effectively, and point us in new directions for inquiry and growth? Participants in this session explore new and relatively simple techniques for visualizing aggregated and longitudinal SRI data to identify, reflect on, and document patterns found within the data. Reporting on a project focused on enhancing and promoting effective use of SRI data, we demonstrate some accessible, spreadsheet-based prototype tools that visualize SRI data in a variety of ways, provide context over time or within a program or teaching unit, and guide the reader's interpretation of the results. Using specific cases, participants and presenters together explore effective ways that such tools can be used by instructors, department heads, and academic developers to find meaningful patterns in SRI data, to annotate and document facets of an instructor's teaching in a portfolio, or to find insights that can lead to improved teaching practice for an individual instructor or within a program. We also provide some cautions about ways that SRI cannot or should not be used, and show how visualization tools can help avoid such misuse.
Graniero, P.A., Hamilton, B. and Cramer, K. (2014). SRI data aggregation and visualization: An evaluation of potential uses. Technical Report commissioned for Wright, A., Mighty, J., Muirhead, W., Scott, J., & Hamilton, B. (2014). The Ontario Universities' Teaching Evaluation Toolkit Feasibility Study: A Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities Productivity and Innovation Fund Initiative. University of Windsor: Windsor, ON.
Hativa, N. (2013a). Student ratings of instruction: Recognizing effective teaching. Charleston, SC: CreateSpace.
Hativa, N. (2013b). Student ratings of instruction: A practical approach to designing, operating, and reporting. Charleston, SC: CreateSpace.
Winer, L., di Genova, L., Vungoc, P.-A. & Talsma, S. (2012). Interpreting end-of-course evaluation results. Montreal: Teaching and Learning Services, McGill University.
