What Is Observed in Peer Review of Teaching? Quality Standards for Summative Peer Review of Teaching

Abstract

Peer review of teaching is a relatively recent addition to the quality assurance processes of higher education. Formative peer review has a developmental focus, while summative peer review has an evaluative focus, making judgements against standards. These standards are at the core of the Summative Peer Review of Teaching (SPRoT) process. The SPRoT review project, which forms the focus of this paper, identified three key challenges associated with current standards at an Australian university, highlighting the need to critically re-examine and revitalise the standards. The subsequent review adopted an Action Research methodology underpinned by reflective practice theory to investigate these quality standards for peer review of teaching. Four cycles of Action Research are outlined in relation to the embedded single case study of a large metropolitan university. The outcome was six quality teaching standards for use with summative peer review of teaching. The standards are presented with the scholarly evidence-base that underpins each, together with observable indicators for each standard, that is, identifying what is observed in peer review of teaching.