Guideline for Department Heads
This page contains useful information for department heads and liaisons about interpreting the results, tenure and promotion, holistic evaluation, BLUE text Analytics (BTA) and faculty engagement.
Interpreting the results
Deans and department heads will receive individual reports for each instructor evaluated for a course listed under their department or faculty and a department or faculty means reports.
The department head reports include the results of the core 7 quantitative questions, the departmental (course level questions) if added by the department and the written comments.
The deans’ individual reports include the results of the core 7 quantitative questions only. The deans do not receive any qualitative comments.
When interpreting the results you should consider the following.
- The class size: Smaller class sizes in general will receive higher score than large classes. Instructors only teaching large classes should not be compared to instructors teaching only small courses.
- Trends over time: Look at results received over time. In order to take a comprehensive and meaningful look at an instructors teaching ability, you should look at results from multiple courses over multiple years. Research suggests that data should be reviewed from courses every term for at least two years, totalling at least five courses. (last sentence taken directly from McGill’s site)
- Read the comments: Written comments can provide useful insights. Look for specific comments about specific teaching patterns. Look at comments about teaching behaviours that can be changed, try to ignore comments about personal characteristics. Look all aspects of the reports; consider the comments in relation to the quantitative results.
- Understand the statistics: Make sure you understand the statistics included in the reports. For an explanation of the statistics please click here.
Holistic evaluations
Student Learning Experience Questionnaires are an important part of assessing the quality of education an institution provides. At Dalhousie University, SLEQs are recognized as an essential component of a formal institutional evaluation strategy that includes evidence from students (both SLEQ results as well as direct evidence of students' achievement of learning outcomes), self-reflection, and peer evaluation of teaching (including the peer review of teaching materials as well as possibly a peer observation of teaching), usually presented in the form of a comprehensive teaching dossier.
It is strongly recommended to collect multiple sources of evidence when including results in a teaching dossier, when reviewing the results for tenure and promotion procedures and when making any hiring or reappointment decisions.
Tenure and Promotion
Tenure and promotion committees use the SLEQ results each term as part of the process. When using the SLEQ for tenure and promotion, please consider all aspects of this site and more specifically the section on interpreting the results and Holistic evaluations
Blue Text Analytics (BTA)
Included on all departmental means reports are text analytics blocks which represent the comments received in all SLEQ forms for your department. The results have been categorized into attributes and themes. The words displayed on the report may or may not have appeared in the SLEQ reports. But the software has determined that a part of the comment was identified to represent the specific theme. These report blocks are supposed to allow department heads to easily see how their department is doing. It also makes comparisons to your faculty and to the university. This by no means should replace the reading of the individual reports, it is only meant as an added tool and can be especially useful for departments with large numbers of written responses.
Also included is the agregated results of the SRCC questions added to the Fall 2021/2022 SLEQs.
Click here [PDF - 182 kB] to see a more detailed description of the attributes and themes used by the BTA dictionary.
General BTA Dictionary - Attributes
Positive Attributes [PDF - 123 kB]
A subcategory within the attributes category. Themes within the positive subcategory are intended to identify aspects of a subject that the commenter views as an asset.
Negative Attributes [PDF - 128 kB]
A subcategory within the attributes category. Themes within the negative subcategory are intended to identify aspects of a subject that the commenter feels need improvement.
Neutral Attributes [PDF - 90 kB]
Neutral is a theme within the attributes category. Comments classified as neutral by Text Analytics mention feedback that is neither positive or negative. Only one theme is provided to capture neutral comments so that the majority of comments are placed in themes in the arguably more useful positive and negative categories.
Faculty Engagement
One of the best ways to get students engaged in the SLEQ process is to first get your faculty member engaged. Departments where the faculty members are engaged in the process regularly get above 70% in response rates.
There are definitely ways to help improve the response rate in individual courses and we speak about in in the instructor section if this website. As a department or faculty, there needs to be clear information, support and encouragement in order for faculty members to buy in to the process. Making certain that your department or faculty has clear guidelines on how the SLEQ result will be used, making sure that they are only part of a broader approach to evaluation. The SLEQ should never be used as the sole measure of teaching effectiveness. Removing as much of the stress around the process as possible will make instructors more willing to participate and encourage students to respond.