Harmonizing Perceptions: Exploring Alignment of Numerical and Textual Evaluation Through Fine-Grained Sentiment Analysis

Abstract

The assessment of faculty teaching effectiveness plays a pivotal role in shaping educational practices and ensuring academic excellence. While numerical evaluations provide quantifiable measures of teaching effectiveness, textual comments offer valuable qualitative insights into the faculty's instructional methods and interactions. However, discrepancies between these evaluation formats may hinder the accurate assessment of faculty performance. This study aims to determine the alignment between the numerical and textual evaluations of faculty teaching effectiveness using fine-grained sentiment analysis and determine the relationship between numerical ratings and textual comments to identify patterns of consistency or divergence. A large dataset of anonymized BSCS students’ feedback is analyzed through sentiment analysis to extract sentiments expressed in the textual comments. The study results reveal a misalignment between students’ subjective perceptions expressed in the textual comments and the numerical ratings. This misalignment arises due to several factors, such as student communication style variations, individual interpretations of rating scales, or subjective biases. This study advances faculty evaluation methodologies and offers useful recommendations for organizations looking to improve assessment procedures as well as educational institutions that want to improve the precision and efficacy of their faculty evaluation systems for better faculty development and decision-making.