Program: Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence

Assessment: Teaching Consultation Impact Survey

Purpose:

The economic situation in 2008-09 necessitated budget cuts across the university, so we needed to evaluate the impact of our programs to decide which to prioritize and which to revise to better meet faculty needs. We began with teaching consulting because it is our core program as well as the one most widely used. Although we often receive anecdotal evidence about the effectiveness of teaching consulting in letters and emails from faculty, we needed a more systematic and transparent process that engaged a broader, unbiased sample of faculty. The main goal of this survey was to collect information from faculty about the impact that teaching consultations with an Eberly colleague had on their course design or delivery—more specifically, the kinds of pedagogical changes that resulted from the consultations and how many courses and students were affected.

Implementation:

We constructed a four-question online survey and emailed faculty an invitation to participate and a link to the survey. We targeted faculty and instructors who had worked with Eberly colleagues in the past two years.

Results:

We collected survey data in February 2009 and analyzed it in March 2009. The data collected was very valuable in validating our informal assessment of the changes our faculty colleagues implement as a result of working with us. This data have also helped us to determine which programs to maintain, prioritize, and revise.

Comments:

The survey had a very high response rate, which we attribute to its brevity and the faculty’s interest in the program. We plan to administer this survey annually in order to systematically assess the center’s effectiveness and to develop and revise programs appropriately.