Chair’s Column January 2025: On Teaching Evaluations

Dear Colleagues,

Teaching evaluations allow students to provide feedback on teachers and identify those whom they deem excellent or in need of improvement. However, there are several reasons why our current system of evaluating teaching is problematic.

First, as Drs. Shiphra Ginsburg and Lynfa Stroud have outlined in their commentary on this issue¹, student evaluations of teachers do not necessarily correlate with actual learning. Evaluations may reflect opinions on non-teaching-related factors such as the organization of rotations or be confounded by teacher attractiveness and charisma; women and underrepresented groups may be particularly disadvantaged. This is not to say that teaching evaluations don’t provide valuable information – just that in isolation, they may not be the best measure of teaching effectiveness.

Although teaching evaluations are often conceptualized as formative, with constructive feedback allowing teachers to hone their skills through coaching or other interventions, they are widely used for other purposes. They are relied upon for decisions about recruitment, promotions, awards, or sanctions for faculty, who are therefore highly motivated to obtain good evaluations. Because faculty who give high grades to students are more likely to receive positive evaluations themselves, there can be a tendency toward grade inflation and a reluctance to provide honest feedback¹. This is not in the best interests of our trainees or their future patients.

Additionally, the language of feedback in teaching evaluations is not always constructive. Negative evaluations can be demotivating, with an adverse impact on self-esteem, wellbeing, and enthusiasm for teaching. Drs. Tina Trinkaus and Umberin Najeeb interviewed faculty in the Department of Medicine (DoM) and found that negative evaluations were demoralizing not just for clinician teachers, but for faculty across all position descriptions. Drs. Ryan Brydges and Christie Lee from the DoM Medical Education Scholarship group conducted detailed interviews of DoM faculty and identified concerns with how teaching evaluations are interpreted and used, and a loss of trust in the process.

Fortunately, there are potential solutions. Dr. Arno Kumagai, Vice Chair Education, is already working on changes to the appeals process. He and Dr. Umberin Najeeb, Vice Chair Culture & Inclusion, will be leading a retreat later this month, in collaboration with Drs. Brydges, Lee, Trinkaus and others, to identify other potential changes to our processes. Thereafter, Drs. Shiphra Ginsburg and Lynfa Stroud will lead a special group to innovate, pilot test, and evaluate modifications to how teaching and education are assessed. In all these activities, there will be engagement with key stakeholders at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, for whom teaching evaluations are also a priority and who are undertaking related initiatives in this area.

My thanks to everyone who is contributing to this work. I look forward to improving our system of assessing teaching and education for the sake of our faculty, our trainees, and our patients.

Sincerely,
Moira

Dr. Moira Kapral
Sir John and Lady Eaton Professor and Chair, Department of Medicine, University of Toronto

¹Ginsburg S and Stroud L. Necessary but insufficient and possibly counterproductive: The complex problem of teaching evaluations. Academic Medicine 98(3):p 300-303, March 2023. | DOI: 10.1097/ACM.0000000000005006