Performance Appraisal: Professor Evaluation

o Please use text/prose when appropriate.

o Follow APA guidelines, especially citations.
o Include references, where appropriate.

Create an evaluation system for rating professors (aka Teacher Evaluations) on the teaching
dimension of their positions.

Evaluations should include:

Performance rating system.
Instruction Guide including a training program for raters.
Explanation for your choice of rating system.

A. Instruction Guide for Teaching Evaluation (What is the process?)

Consider the problems that occur when assessing performance

Rater errors & how the appraisal is designed to decrease these errors.
Process recommendations
Other best practices mentioned in your book

Write a guide that outlines the process for conducting your teaching evaluation. The
guide should address the following questions:
1. How often will the job be evaluated?
The job will be evaluated twice per semester (once by a peer faculty member and once by the
department head), four times overall. The job will also be evaluated once at the end of the
semester through student evaluations. The ratee will get a formal assessment at the end of the
school year but will receive feedback at the end of each semester.

2. Should the rater collect performance information formally throughout the

appraisal period?
The rater will collect performance information throughout the appraisal period and highlight
criteria the professor executes effectively, along with improvements.

3. What behaviors are most relevant for evaluation?

We will rate the professor based on communicating effectively, knowledgeability, and time
management.

4. What scales are being used and why?

We are going to use a combination of the BARS (Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale) and BOS
(Behavioral Observation Scale). Despite being elaborate and expensive, the use of both of the
scales to measure the criteria in two ways. We also wanted to use BARS and BOS for different
evaluations.
 5. Describe the type of training you will use for raters. Why will you use
that type?
Both Rater Error Training and Frame of Reference training will be used. Through RET training, it
is important to not assume that reducing errors increases accuracy and that assumptions about
accuracy in general are avoided. Frame of Reference will contribute to consistent ratings and
help ensure everyone is thinking and evaluating the same way. We will also require rater to
have Behavioral Observation Training in combination with Frame of Reference to help improve
recognition and recall of behaviors.

6. How should the rater guard against biases in ratings?

In order to control for bias, all raters will have to complete all
training. Each evaluation will have three raters, one as a student, one will
be a peer faculty member, and the third will be a department head. Each
raters evaluation will be compared to see if there are discrepancies.

B. Teaching Evaluation

Choose 8-10 criteria that you want to include on a performance appraisal for your
professors as an in-class evaluation.

The number of items per criterion will depend on what type of system (Bars,
BOS, graphic rating scale) you use.
Include the system of rating (will you use anchors? What scale will you use?)
Provide a brief explanation of how you addressed content-related
recommendations from your reading.

BOS
Each criterion has two to four questions related to it, and responses that
include four possible answers to choose from: Never, sometimes, often, or
always. Below are the four criterion we chose for the BOS, followed by some
sample questions that deal with them.

BARS
Each criterion has a rating scale from 1-5. Ratings 1, 3, and 5 would have a
brief description as an example of what behaviors and actions would be
exhibited by a faculty member with this rating.
C. Explanation of Performance Appraisal (Daniel)

What Performance Appraisal type did you use?

A combination of BOS and BARS
Why did you choose that one?
Keep in mind whether your criteria are subjective/objective, can discriminate
good/bad performance, include a balance of questions.
We chose a combination of the BOS and BARS