Higher Education Instructors’ Usage of and Learning from Student Evaluations of Teaching – Do Achievement Goals Matter?
Identifying what motivates higher education instructors in their self-regulated learning from stu-dent evaluations of teaching (SET) is important for improving future teaching. In a longitudinal online field study, we investigated how higher education instructors’ achievement goals predict the use of SET(s), processing its results and learning from it. We expected beneficial effects of learning (approach and avoidance) goals and performance approach goals, while performance avoidance goals and work avoidance goals should be detrimental for the learning process. In to-tal, 407 higher education instructors with teaching commitments reported their achievement goals. Out of these participants, 152 instructors voluntarily conducted SET(s) and subsequently reported their learning intentions regarding this student feedback. Using structural equation modelling, we found that learning avoidance goals were positively associated with conducting SET(s) and learning approach goals were positively associated with learning intentions. These findings highlight the importance of learning goals for instructors’ use of SET(s).