Journal Club Article: Lakeman, R., Coutts, R., Hutchinson, M., Lee, M., Massey, D., Nasrawi, D., & Fielden, J. (2021). Appearance, insults, allegations, blame and threats: an analysis of anonymous non-constructive student evaluation of teaching in Australia. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 1-14.
This paper shows a worrying ‘hate speech’ issue. It may pervade into evaluations that are anonymous and are not constructive to course development. This issue has the potential to impact academic well-being. Maybe in small controlled survey populations this openness may be safe. In large populations, the risk of more harm than good is increased. This type of language has no place in education. As an educator, it is important to consider the implications of evaluations and feedback. Educators should think about how results are interpreted, presented, and acted upon. Who has the data? Does the organisation run this for educator performance review purposes? Or, is it all to gain valuable feedback from learners on the learning experience? This paper and the social media discussion below around the paper provides some challenging reading regarding academics experiences.
Summary: Evaluations of teaching through anonymous feedback in higher education setting.
Five themes were identified:
- Allegations
- Insults
- Comments about appearance, attire and accent
- Projections and blame
- Threats and punishment
“well-being of teaching staff, could contribute to occupational stress and in some cases could be considered libellous.”
Follow the conversation on X:
Nursing Education Network 
Leave a Reply