SETU - Student Evaluation of Teaching and Units

Background

The SETU is a new single teaching/unit evaluation survey that, after a trial run over summer semester, will be administered online each semester beginning in semester 1, 2011. This instrument replaces the previously separate unit evaluation and MonQueST (Monash Questionnaire Series on Teaching)  surveys into one survey. The original unit evaluation questions will be included plus four (4) new teaching questions. Up to fifteen academics associated with each unit offering can be evaluated.

The SETU will assist in improving teaching and learning across the University. The feedback obtained will allow for the identification of areas where teaching and learning is of a particularly high quality so that we can learn from the practices in those areas. It will also allow us to pinpoint where we can make improvements to ensure that our students receive a high quality educational experience. To support this, academic staff will be required to include their SETU results in their performance development portfolio during the annual performance development process. Faculties will determine which units and staff are evaluated in each semester.

Further information on the policy and procedure for the use of SETU data in the performance development process can be found within the Staff Development Procedure for the Academic Staff Performance Development Process.

The SETU results will also need to be provided by staff in the achievement reports supporting applications for confirmation, promotion or teaching awards. While faculties will now determine which units and staff are evaluated each semester, staff may still ‘opt in' to be evaluated should they need the results for these applications.

Further information on the Student Evaluation Policy and the SETU procedures can be found in the Monash University Policy Bank. Additionally, further information regarding work undertaken in 2009 to revise and update the unit evaluation component of the SETU can be found in the paper; Revision of Unit Evaluation Survey.

Survey Administration

The administration of the SETU is managed by the Office of Planning and Quality. Timelines, documentation and training materials related to survey administration can be found on the SETU Survey Administration website.

Survey Instrument

SETU questionnaires for each faculty can be found on the SETU Survey Instrument website

Survey Results

Unit evaluation quantitative data are available from:

• Unit evaluation static reports published on the Office of Planning & Quality website (accessible to both staff and students)
• The Education module of the Monash Business Intelligence System (contains unit evaluation median scores and response rates in the unit summary and unit details reports) (accessible to staff only)
• Summary reports of the unit evaluation data are also prepared after each semester by the Office of Planning and Quality.

Unit evaluation qualitative data are provided to each faculty's Associate Dean (Education) in the form of pdf reports of the open ended comments.

Teaching evaluation data are published in the my.monash portal under the ‘teaching' tab and then under ‘Teaching development'. These will only be accessible to the teacher that was evaluated

Median Scores in the SETU reports

One of the key measures used in these reports is the ‘median'. The median shown in these reports is calculated under the assumption that the five point scale represents a continuous random variable rather than five discrete categories. For further information on how this measure is calculated please refer to the paper Methodology for the calculation of the median in the SETU reports (Pdf 116KB).

iSETU - Informal Student Evaluation of Teaching and Units

The iSETU (Informal Student Evaluation of Teaching and Units) is a self-administered, informal evaluation of teaching that teaching staff can use to gain preliminary feedback from their students. Teaching staff may wish to administer this to their students in the first half of semester (prior to week 6).

iSETU Questionnaire (Pdf, 21KB)