Contributor: Dr. Karthiha Raveenthiran
Summary
Learner evaluations of preceptors are used to obtain feedback and guide improvement. However, to be effective, these evaluations must prompt faculty action. Evaluative comments that elicit strong reactions may undermine the process by hindering innovation and improvement. Literature shows that faculty may interpret some feedback as a judgment on their personal and professional identity, rather than just on their teaching ability. This article offers guidance for faculty and their institutions to support effective responses to critical feedback to create positive productive change.
Take-Away Tidbits
The strategies below outline steps to: Facilitate a shared understanding for the role of learner feedback in the educational endeavour (Tips 1-3); Foster among faculty a growth mindset and productive response to words that hurt (Tips 4-8); Provide institutions a framework for support and oversight that enable long-term faculty educator improvement and retention (Tips 9-12).
Tips for both faculty and institutions
- Tip 1: Appreciate both the complexity of feedback from student evaluations of teaching and its purpose to guide improvement
- Tip 2: Understand the limitations for student evaluations of teaching
- Tip 3: Recognize and account for the challenges of innovation
Tips for faculty
- Tip 4: Observe and reflect on one’s immediate response to feedback
- Tip 5: Don’t overlook the positive
- Tip 6: Examine the learning context
- Tip 7: Triangulate additional feedback data to make sound judgment
- Tip 8: Take action with a focus on learning and learner agency
Tips for institutions
- Tip 9: Provide active oversight of the evaluation process
- Tip 10: Develop learners’ ability to provide effective feedback
- Tip 11: Develop and support faculty to respond constructively to feedback and provide faculty with resources to help them improve
- Tip 12: Provide faculty with other evidence of teaching outcomes and implement a holistic system for evaluation of teaching
Resources
When students’ words hurt: 12 tips for helping faculty receive and respond constructively to student evaluations of teaching. Susannah Cornesa, Dario Torreb, Tracy B. Fultonc, Sandra Ozad, Arianne Teheranie and H. Carrie Chen. Medical Education Online Volume 28, 2023 – Issue 1