Exploring students’ voices in lecturers’ teaching and learning developmental trajectory

Abstract

Student evaluation of teaching (SET) is the common way of assessing teaching quality at universities and tracing the professional growth of lecturers. The aim of this study was to investigate the role played by student evaluation in the teaching and learning agenda at one South African university. The researchers used a qualitative approach and a case study research design. With regards to data collection, document analysis was used. Evaluation reports were reviewed to monitor the growth of lecturers who were evaluated during the academic years 2020 and 2021 in one faculty.  The results of the study reveal that student evaluation remains the most relevant tool to inform the teaching agenda at a university. Lecturers who were evaluated were found to grow academically. All lecturers evaluated during 2020 has showed great improvement when evaluated repeatedly during 2021. Therefore, it can be concluded that student evaluation helps to improve pedagogical and professional proficiency of lecturers. The study therefore, recommends that lecturers conduct an evaluation for each module they teach every semester or annually in case of year modules. The study also recommends that lecturers attend to all areas that draw negative comments from students in order to improve