Abstract:

Development of tools for the objective evaluation of the professional activities of the research and academic staff is necessary for quality improvement and certification procedures. A system for evaluation of the educational activity has recently been established at the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia (Spain). The parameter used is called “Educational Activity Index” (EAI) and provides an objective evaluation of: 1) planning of the educational activity, which includes: formation of the staff, courses description, information provided to the students, and teaching materials and resources; 2) development of the teaching, including: imparted teaching, tutorships performed, evaluation, and other educational activities; and, 3) results, which includes: opinion polls to students, students performance results, observance of tutorship timetables, and compliance on the scheduled delivery dates of marks to students. In this respect, for each of these three dimensions, scores are obtained and, by applying a formula which gives different weights to each of the scores, the EAI is obtained. Individual thresholds for obtaining a qualitative evaluation of the quality of the educational activity (Very Favourable, Favourable or Unfavourable) are established depending on the teaching capacity (number of credits that theoretically can be assigned to each teaching staff member). Here, we evaluate the application of the EAI to the educational evaluation of the staff of the Department of Biotechnology of the Polytechnical University of Valencia (Spain). According to the EAI based qualitative evaluation, 18.6% of the staff achieved a Very Favourable evaluation, 81.4% a Favourable evaluation, and 0.0% an Unfavourable evaluation. A high correlation has been found between the imparted teaching and the EAI (r=0.83), as well as between the teaching capacity and the EAI (r=0.77). In consequence, those staff members that give more lectures and have more teaching credits assigned get higher EAI values. In order to develop a quantitative parameter to evaluate the quality of the teaching staff having different teaching capacity levels, we propose a new index called “Educational Activity Quality Index” (EAQI) which is based on the relative value of the EAI referred to the threshold levels for getting an Unfavourable (EAQI=0) or Very Favourable (EAQI=100) qualification. EAQI is a better tool than EAI to compare the quality of the educational activity of the research and academic staff, although EAQI values are still highly dependent on the credits imparted (r=0.64) and teaching capacity (r=0.35). This indicates that the threshold levels for obtaining the qualification of Very Favourable or Unfavourable with the present system largely depend on the number of credits imparted and teaching capacity. In fact, the part-time research and academic staff have lower values of the EAQI (42.9) than the full-time staff (75.6). In this respect, the proportions of Very Favourable qualifications among part-time, and full-time research and academic staff are of 0.0%, 22.9%, respectively. This suggests that the formulae established to determine the thresholds for getting Unfavourable or Very Favourable qualifications should be revised in order to have a better evaluation of the quality of the educational activity of the teaching staff with lower level of credits imparted.

Keywords:

educational activity index, educational activity quality index, evaluation, research and academic staff.