Equity, diversity, and teaching evaluation: Emerging critical issues at a North American university

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify critical issues related to equity and diversity in higher education teaching evaluation processes, emerging issues related to race, ethnicity and gender of faculty and students in the context. The paper is part of a qualitative research, which uses a holistic approach to examine the meanings, commitments, and social consequences of evaluation in the context of a North American university. A qualitative case study research design was used for this purpose. Data collection included multiple techniques and sources of information, allowing the configuration of five main categories that group the main critical issues emerging in the research. The results indicate that the ways in which students assign scores to the quality of their teachers' teaching vary, and that there are cases in which their perceptions are influenced by issues related to the teacher's accent, place of origin, gender and ethnicity. This raises the need to explore other forms of evaluating teaching that do not rely solely on standardized tools, but that allow other social and cultural issues of the educational actors to be considered.