Summarizing student evaluations from different institutions?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

How does one summarize raw quantitative data from teaching evaluations across different institutions and therefore different evaluative scales? Does one include one summary per institution in the teaching portfolio?

Good questions. Indeed, the most common approach that I've seen is to separate out quantitative summaries by institution. I've also heard that some people think it is bad to try to merge quantitative data from different institutions, both for technical reasons but also because it can be useful to search committee members to see clearly how the candidate's evaluations were at different institutions. So, I think separating things out is the way to go. But what do you all think?

Comments

[historygrrrl]

I've always done one little quantitative table for each institution. Right before each table, I put a quick blurb about what the numbers mean: e.g. scale of 1-5, whether 1 or 5 is good.

It really only adds a couple of lines and, IMO, is much clearer.

[Greg Stoutenburg]

I've done one chart per institution, and where there are close-to-identical questions at different institutions (and they made me look good), put them in a chart together.