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Inadequate teaching evaluation practices undermine a department's ability to encourage, recognize, and reward effective teaching. Adopting more robust and equitable evaluation practices can address this, but faculty often worry their colleagues will resist such changes. We describe the development of the Teaching Evaluation Readiness Assessment (TERA), a survey to measure faculty readiness for reforming departmental teaching evaluation practices. The TERA is grounded in the readiness for change framework from organizational management, which stipulates components that contribute to productive engagement with an organizational change. This survey is designed to measure the extent to which faculty: (a) see value in teaching evaluation reform for themselves and their department, (b) feel their department would be capable of successfully changing teaching evaluation practices, and (c) perceive that their department head would be supportive of these changes. We used existing instruments, expert review, think-aloud interviews, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and comparisons across time and departments to develop the TERA and gather evidence of its validity as a measure of faculty readiness to change teaching evaluation. Findings suggest readiness for reform may be higher than what faculty and change agents perceived anecdotally. We discuss how the TERA can serve change agents and researchers. 

Abstract Desired reforms in undergraduate education require shifts in departmental practices. Department heads are positioned to be change agents, but often lack formal leadership training, and their approaches to change have received little scholarly attention. Research findings from disciplines like organizational management can offer relevant insights. We drew on Kotter’s 8-step model for leading change as a theoretical lens for examining the ideas and actions of heads leading changes to departmental teaching evaluation practices. We used deductive and inductive qualitative content analysis to identify what was present and absent in the approaches taken by department heads. Department heads used some, but not all the steps in the 8-step model and prioritized additional actions. They sought faculty input to foster a sense of ownership in new practices and address concerns. Heads also proposed new changes strategically, worked with colleagues to develop new practices and build buy-in, and aimed to cultivate confidence about the feasibility of new practices. Compared to the 8-step model, heads did not foster a sense of urgency or intentionally craft messaging. Drawing on the collective wisdom of department heads and Kotter’s model, we present an adapted process for leading change in academic departments. The process recognizes the flat hierarchy of academic departments by including iterative steps of proposing, piloting, and revising new practices. It also highlights important steps that might not be the norm in departments, such as formulating careful messaging about the need for a change and repeatedly and intentionally broadcasting progress. 

We relied on change theory to design a 3-year intervention with STEM department heads to provide space for busy heads to focus on research-based change in teaching evaluation practices. The impact on departmental practices was variable and department head readiness for change mattered.