The role of student evaluations in a PBL centred law curriculum: towards a more holistic assessment of teaching quality

Sjoerd Claessens

doi:10.1080/03069400.2019.1580009

The role of student evaluations in a PBL centred law curriculum: towards a more holistic assessment of teaching quality

Sjoerd Claessens^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Students' evaluations are used to measure teaching effectiveness of staff. As such they are used to assess and appraise staff. The article - taking a doctrinal rather than an educational science approach - shows that there are considerable problems with the hypothesis that students' evaluations measure teaching effectiveness. This is even more so in systems where an overarching teaching philosophy like problem-based learning (PBL) is applied. The article identifies a working hypothesis that students do not use the teaching philosophy as primary motivator to evaluate staff, leading to a perverted incentive. Changes made to the system of evaluation in the law faculty of Maastricht University are described.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	43-54
Number of pages	12
Journal	Law Teacher
Volume	54
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/03069400.2019.1580009
Publication status	Published - Mar 2020

Keywords

Student
evaluations
problem-based learning (PBL)
VALIDITY

Access to Document

10.1080/03069400.2019.1580009Licence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

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title = "The role of student evaluations in a PBL centred law curriculum: towards a more holistic assessment of teaching quality",

abstract = "Students' evaluations are used to measure teaching effectiveness of staff. As such they are used to assess and appraise staff. The article - taking a doctrinal rather than an educational science approach - shows that there are considerable problems with the hypothesis that students' evaluations measure teaching effectiveness. This is even more so in systems where an overarching teaching philosophy like problem-based learning (PBL) is applied. The article identifies a working hypothesis that students do not use the teaching philosophy as primary motivator to evaluate staff, leading to a perverted incentive. Changes made to the system of evaluation in the law faculty of Maastricht University are described.",

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