Student surveys also can provide feedback for improvement. Teachers want
to know if their students feel sufficiently
challenged, engaged, and comfortable
asking them for help. Whereas annual
measures of student achievement gains
provide little information for improvement (and generally too late to do much
about it), student surveys can be administered early enough in the year to tell
teachers where they need to focus so
that their current students may benefit. As feedback tools, surveys can be
powerful complements to other instruments. Surveys might suggest students’ misunderstandings aren’t being
addressed; done well, observations can
diagnose a teacher’s specific attempts at
clarification.
imperatives for
implementation
Benefits aside, student perception
surveys present their own set of challenges and considerations to states
and districts. Some of these relate to
the survey instrument itself. Not every
survey will produce meaningful information on teaching. Not to be confused
with popularity contests, well-designed
student perception surveys capture
important aspects of instruction and the
classroom environment. Rather than
pose, “Do you like your teacher?” typical items might ask the extent to which
students agree that, “I like the way the
teacher treats me when I need help” and
“If you don’t understand something, my
teacher explains it another way.” Survey
development is a sophisticated, datadriven process.
But even a good instrument, implemented poorly, will produce bad
information. Attending to issues such as
student confidentiality, sampling, and
accuracy of reporting takes on greater
urgency as systems look toward including student surveys in their evaluation
systems. The care with which systems must administer surveys in such
contexts is akin to that required in the
formal administration of standardized
student assessments. Smooth administration and data integrity depend on
piloting, clear protocols, trained coordinators, and quality-control checks