Students who fail to absorb the intellectual juices flowing around them are considered lazy little sponges. Reference works and teaching conferences provide all of the techniques needed for teaching well. With this approach, most faculty members pick up fairly effective teaching techniques from various cookbooks within the six-year window for tenure. According to this paradigm, the fairly simple teaching evaluation exercise focuses on the professor's knowledge, actions and characteristics. The spotlight is entirely on the professor and students are the photographers.
Student evaluations dominate the evidence for effective teaching.
Literature on evaluation of teaching grows heavy with empirical research on statistical fine points related to validity and reliability of student evaluations. This simplistic view of teaching and its evaluation fits well into the administrators' responsibility to treat people uniformly and fairly across campus. We use small common denominators and standard, simple ways of measuring quality to provide the comfort of comparability and the appearance of fairness. The form asks one question and requires only one action. There is an unspoken understanding that the departments will not point the way to any uncertainties they might have.