Teaching faculty experiences with student evaluation of instruction: A mixed-methods study

• Universities employ end of teaching period student evaluations to assess the effectiveness of both curricula and teachers; however, literature exist that questions the reliability and validity of the intended use of these evaluations. • Negative feedback, personal attacks, and biased critique can all be included in an evaluation, causing significant impact on the emotional wellbeing of the academic. Despite this there is a dearth of literature examining the emotions these evaluations have on the teacher. • Teaching academics from a single, large multicampus tertiary Australian Nursing and Midwifery school completed online surveys, with most feeling that extrinsic factors and grades influenced evaluations. • The current evaluation system actively places staff under stress with no active mitigation process in place and as such requires review. Universities assesses the effectiveness of teaching faculty and curricula via student evaluations, despite literature questioning the reliability and validity of this process. What is seldom examined is the emotions these evaluations evoke on teachers. The study aimed to explore the experiential phenomena that nursing and midwifery teachers encounter in response to student evaluations. A three-phase exploratory sequential mixed-methods study was employed with teachers from a single, large multicampus tertiary Australian Nursing and Midwifery school. Nursing and Midwifery teachers completed both a qualitative (n=43) and quantitative online survey (n=48). The survey identified most staff were anxious and felt judged by comments on their evaluations. Though the majority felt extrinsic factors and grades influenced evaluations, they were used to adjust content. Universities, like other workplaces, are required under legislation to provide a safe workplace yet perpetuate an evaluation system that actively places teaching faculty under stress with no active mitigation process in place. There is an opportunity for higher education to protect their staff and engage in alternative evaluative methodologies.