Teaching evaluation in higher education: emerging issues from international research

The paper investigates the issue of teaching evaluation in higher education. A review of the existing research is presented and discussed within a framework organized on the basis of five thematic areas. In the first one, there are studies focused on "effectiveness" of the teacher and the course. Another thematic area concerns student ratings of instruction, which have been shown to be reasonably valid, representing a common way to evaluate teaching. A third area is represented by studies which suggest the use of other means of teaching evaluation to be used in alternative or in addition to the traditional questionnaires. Moreover, there are a lot of studies focused on the utilization of the results of evaluation (fourth area), and finally, other studies concern a specific evaluative form, which is self-evaluation, related to the teacher and to the institution itself. Considering the numerous perspectives from which this topic has being managed, it will be argued that teaching evaluation is characterized by multidimensionality and complexity. Only in this way it can represent a useful instrument for the improvement of teaching process.