Student Evaluations and the Performance of University Teaching: Teaching to the Test

Abstract

What do course evaluation questionnaires (CEQs) do to our teaching and to our perceptions of ourselves as teachers? We are all early- to mid-career academics at a midsized Canadian university who explore how course evaluation questionnaires have affected our academic identities. By using autoethnography and critical reflection, we examine how CEQs shape and restrict our teaching identities as well as the identities of our students. Alternative ways of assessing teaching excellence and promoting communities of inquiry are explored.