The debate about the weight of students' standardized test scores on teacher performance in elementary and secondary schools continues.
There are strong opinions on both sides of the debate, especially when the most important test scores (the high-stakes scores of math and English) are used to rate the performance of all teachers in a school. While complicated, value-added models are often used to modify the direct relationship that links teacher performance to student test scores, and there are strong opinions supporting the value of these predictive models. Generally, student test scores are most often acknowledged as only one of the key measures of success in education, albeit a very important objective measure.
What about linking nursing student test scores to faculty evaluations? Currently, there are a number of ways in which faculty are evaluated, including student ratings of faculty. Typically, only a small percentage of students complete the faculty evaluation forms - often students who have the most positive and the most negative views, and often for faculty assigned the most difficult courses (e.g., pathophysiology), or faculty teaching certain courses for the first time, with new assignments each semester. Yet, these unrepresentative evaluations are used in rating teacher performance.
On the other hand, student standardized test scores and student NCLEX test scores are not linked systematically to teacher evaluations in nursing. With objective tests an increasingly important part of nursing education, how long will it be before they are linked to faculty performance? And, more importantly, how will such tests be used?
The best use would be for mentoring faculty regarding improvement strategies. My observation in the past several years has been that the nurse faculty shortage has led to our having fewer mentoring programs, particularly for those expert clinicians who were recruited into the faculty role based on their clinical expertise. The recent renewed emphasis on graduate programs in nursing education as preparation for the faculty role may result in substantial changes in faculty preparedness for both classroom and clinical teaching.
As with other levels of the education system, teacher evaluation should be linked to student and teacher improvement. Many of the best teacher evaluation models involve in-class observation over time, conducted by expert evaluators. Overall, nursing education has not systematically adopted any method for teacher evaluation, let alone tied teacher evaluation to systematically initiated objective measures.
The one conclusion that we can all agree upon from reviewing the literature on testing, including the articles in this issue of Nursing Education Perspectives, is that there is a need for more research. Nurse educators who are interested in a research career would be well advised to develop expertise in this area.