In my opinion the commentary “Student Surveys a Poor Measure of Teaching Competence” (Bulletin, January 2012) discredits the extensive academic literature on teaching evaluations and the experience-based learning intelligence of students.

For CAUT to publish this opinion to tens of thousands of Canadian academics, one would reasonably expect the authors to be experts in teaching development and experts at illuminating the interface between patients and medical doctors, who are supposed to “listen to the patient” (Osler, 1849–1919).

Instead, the proposed approach appears to be a difficult-to-implement, time-consuming-for-peers, expensive, and likely statistically-unreliable “solution” for overly-extensive summative purposes. My perspective is that greater formative emphasis is needed to improve both teaching and student learning experiences.

Further, the proposed alternative to student surveys undermines individual student experiences over many years and reduces the possible learning benefits for future students taught by the same professor.

Bob Schulz
Haskayne School of Business
University of Calgary

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