The Emergence of Student Evaluation in Higher Education

Abstract

In this introductory chapter, the broad social and epistemological origins of student evaluation in higher education are systematically considered. This includes discussion of the formative development of student evaluation, which was shaped in its earliest form by behaviourist experimentation around the nature of student responsiveness. From these foundational influences, the chapter will then considers the emergence of more developed systems of student evaluation in the United States (and later elsewhere) in the late 1960s under the pressure of rising student unrest and broader social dissatisfaction around educational quality. It is argued that this developing student militancy—in tandem with the mounting challenges of student retention in growing and diversifying higher education systems—provided initial credibility to the student voice and the subsequent broadened adoption of early forms of student evaluation. Significantly, what was characteristic of these earliest forms of student evaluation was the use of student feedback to directly influence and improve teaching quality. The chapter uses examples of the growth in the use of student feedback in the United States and Australia to illustrate the nature of these initial formations.