Course and Teaching Evaluation and Improvement (CATEI)
Who is my first point of contact for enquiries about the CATEI Process?
Enquires should be directed to the CATEI coordinator in your School or Faculty. If there is no designated CATEI coordinator in your School, direct your enquiry to your Faculty CATEI coordinator. Queries about data or your CATEI results should be directed to IARO.
Where can I obtain copies of the CATEI Summary Report - Course Evaluation form (Course Coordinator to Head of School/Program)?
The CATEI Summary Report form can be downloaded as a PDF, Word, or RTF document. Alternatively, the form appears on page forty-six of "The CATEI Process: Information for Staff and Students".
"The CATEI Process: Information for Staff and Students"
I would like to offer feedback on the CATEI Process, who should I direct it to?
Feedback on the CATEI Process can be directed to the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic).
What role does Learning & Teaching @ UNSW play in the CATEI Process?
Learning & Teaching @ UNSW currently has three main roles in the CATEI Process: assisting staff with interpreting CATEI data, offering strategies to adopt in response to student feedback, and providing additional resources and references to compliment the CATEI Process. CATEI is coordinated through IARO.
UNSW is committed to achieving continued improvement in the quality of teaching, courses, and programs. The Course and Teaching Evaluation and Improvement (CATEI) process is a key component of university policy in this area. In previous years, the CATEI process has been included in the Learning and Teaching Performance Indicators.
As part of the university's commitment to quality teaching and to continued improvement, staff are expected to undertake at least one teaching evaluation each year. Staff will also be expected to provide evidence of critical reflection on their teaching when compiling a teaching portfolio for promotion, grants, and awards.
In this section of the website, you can read more about the CATEI process and find information about resources and support.
Why use the CATEI process to evaluate your teaching?
You can obtain feedback and evidence about the quality of your courses and teaching from many sources. Student responses to course and teaching evaluation questionnaires such as those used in the CATEI process represent just one of these sources. Nevertheless, numerous studies have shown that feedback based on students' actual experiences of a course and of the way it is taught can provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of the learning and teaching environment.
Of course, it's not enough simply to seek students' feedback through CATEI - it's what you do with the feedback that's important. As with other forms of feedback, students' perceptions of a course and teaching will lead to improvements in quality only if these perceptions prompt you into reflection and then into action.
Reflecting and acting on the basis of student feedback can be difficult and challenging. For example, if students provide negative feedback, a first response is often to look for someone or something to blame - the fact that the class was too large or that the room was inappropriate for small-group teaching or that the students were less committed and less intelligent than students from previous years. Equally, when the results of student evaluations are positive, it's easy to become complacent and think that, because the students are obviously satisfied with a course or teaching, nothing needs to change. Both responses are potentially unhelpful, because they can prevent critical reflection and stifle innovation.
If you want to move towards better teaching and higher quality student learning, the first step, then, is to see the CATEI process not as an administrative necessity or as personally threatening, but as an opportunity for critical reflection and for engaging in productive dialogue with students and peers.