The potential in student evaluation of teaching for EFL teacher professional development

The quantitative information resulting from student evaluation of teaching (SET) surveys is used extensively in higher education to evaluate teaching faculty, to determine academic promotion and to assure quality of instructional programmes, but rarely is it the case that the qualitative information available is given much attention in the development of learning and teaching. Grounded in the scholarship of teaching and learning, this study explores English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ receptivity of and reaction to student qualitative feedback on various aspects of their teaching in SET surveys. Using data from a SET survey and discrete and open-ended questions gathered from 35 EFL instructors at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman, I have analysed the nature and qualities of reactions the data reveal. Questions relating to instructors’ overall receptivity to student feedback and their interaction with the data in the way they respond to student feedback and relate it to their teaching are explored. Key findings centre on the development of a quadratic typology characterising an interplay of feedback that is positive, negative, general and specific, and consisting of three orientations to feedback by instructors: blame, frame and reframe. Finally, the implications for using SET for course and teacher development are outlined and future research directions are suggested.