Location

Daytona Beach, Florida

Description

Evaluation is a process that is used to measure the depth and breadth of specific knowledge and skills. It is used while the instructional process is taking place to indicate a degree of movement towards a desired performance. It is also used to indicate a level of achievement or degree of competence after the instructional process has taken place. Further, and most relevant to this presentation, is that it gives faculty an indication of the efficacy of their teaching methods.

The intended purpose of the author was to review the literature on how it is that adults learn and how the assessment of student performance should take place. With these as a premise, a survey of 142 faculty members, both full time and adjunct, was conducted to determine how they view (1) the assessment process they personally use and (2) the grading expectations of their respective academic institutions. The surveyed faculty were from six different universities.

The results of the descriptive survey were compared and contrasted with expectations developed from the literature review. The conclusions considered to be most significant were: (1) the meaning faculty gave to the concept that student performance assessments were a reflection of their teaching methods and (2) the preponderance of faculty who hold a personal belief or perceive an institutional expectation, or both, that ratings given for summative evaluations should conform to a "normal curve" distribution.

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Towards Teaching Effectiveness Assessing Student Performance

Daytona Beach, Florida

Evaluation is a process that is used to measure the depth and breadth of specific knowledge and skills. It is used while the instructional process is taking place to indicate a degree of movement towards a desired performance. It is also used to indicate a level of achievement or degree of competence after the instructional process has taken place. Further, and most relevant to this presentation, is that it gives faculty an indication of the efficacy of their teaching methods.

The intended purpose of the author was to review the literature on how it is that adults learn and how the assessment of student performance should take place. With these as a premise, a survey of 142 faculty members, both full time and adjunct, was conducted to determine how they view (1) the assessment process they personally use and (2) the grading expectations of their respective academic institutions. The surveyed faculty were from six different universities.

The results of the descriptive survey were compared and contrasted with expectations developed from the literature review. The conclusions considered to be most significant were: (1) the meaning faculty gave to the concept that student performance assessments were a reflection of their teaching methods and (2) the preponderance of faculty who hold a personal belief or perceive an institutional expectation, or both, that ratings given for summative evaluations should conform to a "normal curve" distribution.