An opportunity or an illusion? Student evaluations of teaching and other quality assessments in higher education

• Main Authors: Guðjohnsen, Ragný Þóra, Rúnarsdóttir, Eygló, Grönvold, Védís, Gísladóttir, Lóa Guðrún
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Icelandic
• Published: Menntavísindasvið Háskóla Íslands 2022
• Subjects: quality assessment; student evaluation of teaching (SET); higher education; mat á gæðum náms og kennslu; kennslukannanir; háskólanám; Iceland
• Online Access: https://ojs.hi.is/index.php/netla/article/view/3537

Quality systems in universities all around the world aim to ensure that education and degrees are comparable with international standards and encourage a quality culture within higher education. The aim of this case study is to examine the views of administrators, teachers, and students at one university in Iceland, on quality assessment in education and teaching as well as quality improvements. Four individual interviews were taken with administrators as well as two focus groups with altogether nine teachers and four focus groups with altogether 15 students. The main finding of the study is that to obtain a comprehensive assessment of learning and teaching quality, it is important to collect various sources of assessment data and ensure the involvement of everyone in the learning community. Participants stated that in their view student evaluation of learning and teaching (SET) has a role in obtaining feedback from students as to how courses and study lines are working out and whether there are any problems that need to be tackled. The administrators found it useful to acquire an overview of how courses measure up to quality standards and be able to analyze what issues are important to respond to. However, it varied to what extent administrators worked on analyzing the findings, although they agreed on the benefit of implementing a more general and systematic process. Teachers described how SET, especially the open question answers, is valuable in order to receive feedback on their courses, enabling them to pick up tips on components that are going well, not working out or need to be modified. It was pointed out that SET also provides the opportunity of comparing assessment rates between schools within the university which can be valuable. According to the interviewees it is, however, important to further develop the questions in SET through the collaboration of everyone in the learning community. Students pointed out that the emphasis in the SET–questions does not always relate well enough to the subjects of ...