1  Introduction

1.1 Background

In 2013, the Academic Senate adopted AS-759-13, establishing the current university-wide student evaluation questions. In 2025, ASI Resolution #25-04 called for reform of the evaluation instrument and processes. In turn, the Academic Senate established the Ad Hoc Committee on Student Perception of Teaching Effectiveness, charged with providing a revised policy and resolution to replace AS-759-13.

The committee was given the following charges:

  1. Reviewing the reliability and validity of the prompts required on all student evaluation instruments, suggesting revisions to the prompts if necessary, and determining if additional prompts are necessary to obtain a more reliable and valid assessment of teaching effectiveness at Cal Poly.
  2. Revisiting the criteria for procedures for conducting student evaluations to increase response rates and reduce incidences of bias, particularly negative bias toward people of color, women, and other minoritized populations in student feedback.
  3. Reviewing how both quantitative and qualitative data collected from student evaluations are provided to faculty, the analysis of the data, and how data are presented for review for retention, promotion, and tenure. The committee should also consider as part of their charges what data is appropriate for development of teaching effectiveness purposes and data appropriate for performance evaluation.
  4. Suggesting processes for disseminating results of student evaluations to Cal Poly students.1

1.2 Summary of recommendations

The proposal this committee has crafted has five parts.

First, it unanimously recommends that the instrument known as the Student Evaluation of Instruction and Student Evaluation of Faculty in the University Faculty Personnel Policies2 be renamed as Student Perceptions of Learning Experience.

Second, it unanimously recommends for the aspects of teaching effectiveness assessed through the Student Perceptions of Learning Experience instrument to be the following:

Interpersonal — how the instructor relates to individual students:

  1. Regard for Students
  2. Consistent Communication and Enforcement of Expectations
  3. Access to Instructor and Instructor Resources

Structural — how the course is experienced as a whole by the students:

  1. Perceived Course Coherence

Environmental — what the classroom feels like as a shared space:

  1. Participatory Climate
  2. Responsive Learning Environment

In the context of this recommendation, the committee unanimously recommends that the Academic Senate establish a standing committee with broad representation charged with oversight of all student feedback instruments and initiatives—summative, formative, and department-originated—including future revisions to the instrument.

Third, the committee discussed whether to remove open-ended questions from the summative instrument due to the extensive evidence of bias in unstructured student comments (see Evidence on bias in open-ended comments below). A motion to remove them from the Student Perceptions of Learning Experience obtained three votes in favor and five votes against. The motion failed. The committee then voted unanimously to retain open-ended questions in the Student Perceptions of Learning Experience instrument under structured prompts and guardrails designed to minimize bias (see Guardrails for open-ended questions below).

Open-ended questions remain a key component of the companion Formative Learning Feedback proposal, where they serve their intended developmental purpose.

The committee understands that the final decision on open-ended questions rests with the Academic Senate, and that endorsement of this report does not commit the Senate to either approach.

Fourth, it unanimously recommends that Likert-scale results be reported as frequency distributions — raw counts together with percentages — excluding the use of means and medians, with guidance for the proper interpretation of these results (see Chapter 4).

Fifth, it unanimously recommends a hybrid approach where online surveys are completed during in-class time in the last two weeks of instruction before finals (see Chapter 5).

This report is organized as follows. Chapters 2 and 3 provide the rationale for the instrument’s name and design. Chapter 4 establishes scoring and reporting guidelines. Chapter 5 addresses implementation best practices. The appendix presents a sample survey instrument with a recommended preamble and sample items. The items presented in the sample survey are illustrative. They are intended to demonstrate how the six aspects of class climate can be operationalized as experiential survey items. The sample survey is not intended to be the final instrument.

  1. After consulting with the Academic Senate Faculty Affairs Committee, Academic Personnel, and CFA, the committee learned that it is not possible to share course evaluation survey information with students under the current CBA and therefore did not pursue this charge further.↩︎

  2. In sections 3.2, 3.4, 7.2, 8.1 and 8.4.↩︎