This study investigated the faculty perception of the use of a student evaluation of faculty instrument. The areas considered were use of the current Student Evaluation of Faculty (SEF) instrument to measure teaching effectiveness; use of the current instrument for annual faculty review; faculty involvement in developing the instrument; utilizing the instrument to improve teaching; and demographics of faculty gender, college/school in which they teach, and the numbers of years of higher education experience. Participants included 734 full-time instructional faculty members at Mississippi State University who taught during the fall 2012 semester and utilized the current SEF instrument. From the 734 faculty invited to participate in the study, 205 responded. The study was conducted in the fall 2013 semester. Over 71% of the participating faculty indicated a negative perception toward the current SEF instrument as an effective tool for their use in evaluating teaching effectiveness. However, 60% of the participants agree the instrument serves as an effective tool for their use to improve teaching. The faculty also indicated they would like to be able to compare their SEF results to others teaching comparable courses. Participants were asked to rate each question taken from the current SEF instrument, indicating its level of usefulness in their ability to utilize the results to improve teaching. Of the 11 questions, only 2 were found to be least useful to the faculty. One of those was related to the tests they give being fair and the other related to the student learned a great deal in the class. Almost 81% of the participants indicated that faculty involvement in the development of the current student evaluation of faculty instrument increased the usefulness in measuring teaching effectiveness. Conclusions based on the findings indicated a need to continue revising the evaluation process and instrument to include a multidimensional process. This multidimensional process should provide separate instruments to be used for annual faculty review and for improving teaching. These revisions should be carried out with faculty involvement to ensure acceptance of the processes and maintain positive perceptions.

Este trabalho traz os resultados de uma investigação de caráter qualitativo, apoiada em descrições provenientes de um curso de especialização on-line colaborativo, tendo como foco o processo de avaliação da aprendizagem dos estudantes. A investigação mostrou que, em decorrência das possibilidades abertas às pessoas pelas novas tecnologias de informação e comunicação, o processo avaliativo não pode se limitar à lógica do exame, pós-processual e definitivo, mas deve estender-se a todos os momentos, formas, atividades e práticas de um ambiente de curso. Esta abordagem, de caráter multidimensional, é capaz de dar conta do caráter complexo do conhecimento pertinente, levando em consideração as múltiplas possibilidades de interação, os diferentes tempos e espaços de aprender e ensinar, e as interfaces correspondentes, bem como as abordagens interdisciplinares presentes no ambiente colaborativo analisado. As referências teóricas buscaram situar as conceituações de avaliação e sua prática predominante, além de tratar dos diversos aspectos das tecnologias de informação e comunicação aplicadas à educação. Com base nestas duas frentes principais, outros conceitos foram contemplados no campo teórico, como complexidade, colaboração, tempo, espaço, interdisciplinaridade, entre outros, o que permitiu à pesquisa basear-se em um arcabouço de idéias a partir das quais as análises foram trazidas à luz, de forma a mostrar as amplas possibilidades da avaliação multidimensional da aprendizagem em ambientes colaborativos on-line, a qual oportuniza o ajuste dos objetivos individuais de estudantes e professores em função de uma estratégia pedagógica que privilegia dialeticamente a construção coletiva do conhecimento e a autonomia. Outro ponto importante demonstrado nesta investigação é a importância das pessoas, acima das tecnologias, e da colaboração entre as pessoas para uma avaliação de todos os momentos, inclusive considerando as trajetórias de cada participante, como sujeito detentor de história pessoal e de conhecimentos advindos de múltiplas fontes, em permanente estado de elaboração. / This piece of work describes the results obtained from a qualitative research supported by descritions about an on-line collaborative post graduation course which has focus the students´ evaluation process. The investigation showed, in result of the possibilities opened to the people by new technologies of information and communication, that the learning evaluation can´t be limitted to the tests logic, in a definitive and post-processual way, but should be spread to all moments, manners, activities and practices existing in a course environment. This multidimensional approach is able to handle with the complexity of the pertinent knowledge, considering the multiple possibilities of interaction, the different times and places of learning and teaching with their equivalent interfaces as well as the interdisciplinary approaches existing in the analized collaborative environment. The theoretical references are used in order to contextualize the evaluation and its predominant practice as well as the several aspects of information and communication technologies applied to education. Based on these two main views, other concepts had been treated in the theoretical field, as complexity, collaboration, time, space, interdisciplinarity, among others. These concepts permitted to this research support itself in a set of ideas from which the analisys were done, in order to show wide possibilities of multidimensional learning evaluation on collaborative on-line environments, which oportunize individual aims adjustment to teachers and students based on a pedagogical strategy that privileges dialetically the colletive knowledge construction and the autonomy. This investigation also showed people´s relevance, more than technologies, as well as the importance of collaboration among people, in order to provide a wide evaluation, considering individual trajectories, because each participant has a personal history and a set of knowledges acquired of several sources.

Este trabalho traz os resultados de uma investigação de caráter qualitativo, apoiada em descrições provenientes de um curso de especialização on-line colaborativo, tendo como foco o processo de avaliação da aprendizagem dos estudantes. A investigação mostrou que, em decorrência das possibilidades abertas às pessoas pelas novas tecnologias de informação e comunicação, o processo avaliativo não pode se limitar à lógica do exame, pós-processual e definitivo, mas deve estender-se a todos os momentos, formas, atividades e práticas de um ambiente de curso. Esta abordagem, de caráter multidimensional, é capaz de dar conta do caráter complexo do conhecimento pertinente, levando em consideração as múltiplas possibilidades de interação, os diferentes tempos e espaços de aprender e ensinar, e as interfaces correspondentes, bem como as abordagens interdisciplinares presentes no ambiente colaborativo analisado. As referências teóricas buscaram situar as conceituações de avaliação e sua prática predominante, além de tratar dos diversos aspectos das tecnologias de informação e comunicação aplicadas à educação. Com base nestas duas frentes principais, outros conceitos foram contemplados no campo teórico, como complexidade, colaboração, tempo, espaço, interdisciplinaridade, entre outros, o que permitiu à pesquisa basear-se em um arcabouço de idéias a partir das quais as análises foram trazidas à luz, de forma a mostrar as amplas possibilidades da avaliação multidimensional da aprendizagem em ambientes colaborativos on-line, a qual oportuniza o ajuste dos objetivos individuais de estudantes e professores em função de uma estratégia pedagógica que privilegia dialeticamente a construção coletiva do conhecimento e a autonomia. Outro ponto importante demonstrado nesta investigação é a importância das pessoas, acima das tecnologias, e da colaboração entre as pessoas para uma avaliação de todos os momentos, inclusive considerando as trajetórias de cada participante, como sujeito detentor de história pessoal e de conhecimentos advindos de múltiplas fontes, em permanente estado de elaboração. / This piece of work describes the results obtained from a qualitative research supported by descritions about an on-line collaborative post graduation course which has focus the students´ evaluation process. The investigation showed, in result of the possibilities opened to the people by new technologies of information and communication, that the learning evaluation can´t be limitted to the tests logic, in a definitive and post-processual way, but should be spread to all moments, manners, activities and practices existing in a course environment. This multidimensional approach is able to handle with the complexity of the pertinent knowledge, considering the multiple possibilities of interaction, the different times and places of learning and teaching with their equivalent interfaces as well as the interdisciplinary approaches existing in the analized collaborative environment. The theoretical references are used in order to contextualize the evaluation and its predominant practice as well as the several aspects of information and communication technologies applied to education. Based on these two main views, other concepts had been treated in the theoretical field, as complexity, collaboration, time, space, interdisciplinarity, among others. These concepts permitted to this research support itself in a set of ideas from which the analisys were done, in order to show wide possibilities of multidimensional learning evaluation on collaborative on-line environments, which oportunize individual aims adjustment to teachers and students based on a pedagogical strategy that privileges dialetically the colletive knowledge construction and the autonomy. This investigation also showed people´s relevance, more than technologies, as well as the importance of collaboration among people, in order to provide a wide evaluation, considering individual trajectories, because each participant has a personal history and a set of knowledges acquired of several sources.