Reflections on peer evaluations

by Cliopatria

This morning, I spent the better part of an hour in a colleague's classroom, observing him as part of the"tenured faculty evaluation process." For those of us who have tenure, once every three years we are required to undergo the TFEP. Our division dean visits our classroom, our students fill out evaluations (in two classes that we get to pick), and we also have peer evaluators whom we select from the ranks of our fellow tenured professors.

While the student evaluations may not always be accurate or have merit (and in the age of professor rating sites on the net, one wonders), I think there is very little usefulness in peer evaluation. Most of the time, we tend to select folks reciprocally. I'll ask a friend to come to my classroom; I'll go to his. The unspoken quid pro quo is obvious: we each write glowing summaries of the other's teaching. These are folks with whom I will spend the rest of my career, and I haven't the slightest intention of putting competence before collegiality. That sounds irresponsible, but honestly, the irresponsibility is within the system itself.

This is not to say I don't ever criticize my colleagues. I once had a student approach me about a faculty member whom she felt was harassing her; I did indeed go and have a sit-down talk with him at once. Where student safety is concerned, I'm not afraid to get in anyone's face. But when it comes to teaching methodologies, lecture strategies, and syllabi choices -- I prefer to"let my colleagues be" because, by gum, I want them to"let me be" in return.

Even our division dean is part of this. After all, division deans are faculty members too, selected from within the department. If they anger tenured faculty, they are removed from administration rather rapidly. Though they can afford to be candid with adjuncts and the untenured, wise administrators ignore all but the most flagrant cases of incompetence in the ranks of the permanently employed.

That being said, in the end I suppose that student evaluations (informally on the 'net or formally in the classroom) are more likely to be honest reflections of teacher performance than any other instrument.

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Michael Burger - 10/22/2004

We have peer review where I teach, and it does indeed suffer from collegiality. People are reluctant ruthlessly to expose colleagues' flaws in writing.

That does not mean, however, that the procedure is utterly useless. Why?

1. I have often picked up some tricks by going to someone else's class, looking at that person's syllabus, etc. In other words, the peer review can improve the reviewer as well as the reviewed.

2. While people may be reluctant to express criticism on paper, they can, in my experience, be more willing to do so in person. This isn't much help in any direct sense when it comes to, say, evaluation for tenure. But it does mean that people who get reviewed do get confronted with some of their flaws. Here, negative comments tend to be muffled in the written review, but are less so when reviewer and reviewed discusss matters face to face.

3. Some professors would be embarrassed to do things before colleagues that they feel free to do before students. I remember thinking this in graduate school while, as a TA, I listened to some horrible lectures. And, indeed, I've had the same experience as a professor. A couple years ago I had a colleague coming to one of my lectures for peer review. It was a lecture I'd given a couple times before, and it suffered from an historiographical problem which I had really always tapped dance around. I'd gotten away with it--what did the studenst know? It was a problem I'd been meaning to address, but had never gotten to because there are 24 hours in a day. Guess what? When my colleague told me he was coming to _that_ lecture, I fixed it. Guilt is good. Humiliation is better.

Richard Henry Morgan - 10/21/2004

I suspect that the conflict in roles between friend and peer evaluator would be maximally eased by another bifurcation -- tell your friend one thing, and write down another for the evaluation (which isn't a problem, as far as I can tell, if the purpose of the evaluation is just to help the instructor improve).

Danny Loss - 10/21/2004

Yeah. Not much you can do there.

But that seems to me to be a very different case from what Hugo's describing. Based on Hugo's description, there's not even any desire to receive any sort of constructive criticism. If it's a friend sitting in on your class, wouldn't you want to hear what they had to say? I would hope that someone secure in their position (i.e. with tenure) is capable of hearing some well-intentioned suggestions.

I'm not trying to be obtuse here. I'm just not sure how the system as Hugo describes it leads inevitably to glowing but bland evaluations. Am I missing something?

Ralph E. Luker - 10/21/2004

Danny, These things can be _really_ difficult. I had a very senior colleague once, who was committed to textbooks and "coverage". His idea of evaluating a book was to count the pages in a textbook that were devoted to a particular subject -- with no attention to what was actually _said_ about _any_ particular subject. After a while, you began to realize that the only hope in his case was a personality transplant. How do you tell that to a senior colleague?

Danny Loss - 10/21/2004

Er, I wasn't advocating getting rid of tenure. My point was that professors should use peer evaluations as an opportunity to improve their teaching, in other words, become more competent. I just don't see how maintaining "collegiality" at the cost of a competent teaching staff is a good thing.

It can be tough to critique a colleague's teaching. I recognize that. But it seems to me that these peer evaluations provide the opportunity to do just that without the awkwardness of approaching someone out of the blue to point out their problems.

Hugo Schwyzer - 10/21/2004

Well, Danny, that calls up the whole issue of tenure. If you want to do away with tenure, fine, but that's performing dentistry with a sledgehammer. It causes far more problems than it solves. But we do need to find a way to talk to each other more candidly.

Richard Henry Morgan - 10/21/2004

Not mentioned explicitly is the purpose(s) of tenured faculty peer evaluations. The guys are already tenured, so chances are they won't be fired. That leaves evaluations for the purpose of promotion or for improving teaching quality.

When the granting at tenure is at stake, the opinions of others in their field are solicited -- for the purpose of evaluating scholarship, not teaching. But why not have outside evaluators for teaching, and if the evaluation is not for purposes of raises or promotion, share that evaluation only with the instructor (for the purpose of improving instruction)? Most universities have teaching centers to help with pedagogy, but they're not much help in evaluating reading lists, etc.

Hugo Schwyzer - 10/21/2004

Sure -- find a way to make peer screening anonymous!

I think we have to be taught to see honesty and collegiality as compatible, and that is a very difficult task. Short of that, I don't see it getting very far.

Danny Loss - 10/21/2004

The way you describe it, it sounds as if the problem emerges from the fact that faculty members are likely to select evaluators who will give them positive reviews. Couldn't this problem be solved by having the peer evaluators assigned randomly?

As far as I'm concerned, faculty should use these evaluations to improve their teaching. If your peer evaluation simply pats you on the back, what's the point? Do you really want your colleagues to "let [you] be"? What if they have a suggestion or comment that could strengthen your teaching? You don't want to hear it?

Putting competence before collegiality doesn't just sound irresponsible, it is irresponsible. Educators have a responsibility to ensure that quality of teaching is as good as it can be, whether in their own classroom or someone else's. Frankly, if your colleagues are incompetent, they shouldn't be your colleagues anymore.

Ralph E. Luker - 10/21/2004

Hugo, Thanks for your candid comments on a very controversial subject. Can you think of reforms which might make teacher evaluation a more equitable and honest business?