“Mirror, ruler, and whip”: Chinese university teachers’ metaphors for student evaluations of teaching

Student evaluations of teaching (SETs) are widely used in higher education, yet little is known about how teachers experience them as lived evaluative conditions, particularly beyond Western contexts. Using elicited metaphor analysis (EMA), this study analysed 446 metaphors from 237 Chinese university teachers. Eleven themes ranged from formative images of Nourishment and Reflection to critical images of Discipline, Strategic Performance, Consumerisation, and Relational Asymmetry. Sentiment coding classified 55.4% of metaphor responses as negative, 29.8% positive, and 14.8% neutral. Exploratory analyses showed that sentiment varied by academic rank, teaching adjustment frequency, and attitudes towards linking SETs to promotion and rewards. Moreover, the study develops pedagogical alienation as an emergent concept describing teachers’ perceived distancing from the purposes, autonomy, practices, and relationships that give teaching its educational meaning. By revealing teachers’ tacit, culturally situated framings, the study illuminates how evaluation is experienced and interpreted as part of pedagogical work.