Student Evaluations Of Teaching Effectiveness Research Articles

Midterm Evaluation of Teaching Provides Helpful Feedback to Instructors

Advantages of using student evaluation of teaching effectiveness at midterm are discussed. They include receiving information on microbehaviors of teaching instead of global ratings, getting feedback that can be used immediately, and bypassing some of the controversies associated with end-of-course departmental evaluations. Procedures for constructing questionnaires for a particular teaching situation are described, as are tips for reporting the data to the class. In addition to giving the instructor useful, non-threatening feedback, midterm evaluations may favorably alter the attitudes of the students toward the instructor and the teaching process.

Student evaluations of teaching effectiveness: a Nigerian investigation

An investigation is reported which tests the applicability of two American instruments designed to assess tertiary students' evaluations of teaching effectiveness with 158 Nigerian undergraduates. The scales were found to have generally high internal consistency reliability coefficients, most of the items were seen to be appropriate, and every item was considered of importance by at least some of the students. In addition, all but the Workload/Difficulty items clearly differentiated between ‘good’ and ‘poor’ lecturers. Factor analysis found a strong main factor of teaching effectiveness plus a minor factor referring to course workload and difficulty. Further analysis generally supported the convergent and discriminant validity of those scales hypothesized to measure similar or dissimilar components of effective teaching. However, this analysis supported the factor analytic results as more overlap between aspects of teaching skill and enthusiasm was found than has been evident in Western studies. Thus there must be doubt about the cross-cultural validity of a multidimensional model of teaching effectiveness.

Student evaluation of teaching effectiveness: an unresolved dilemma

Content analysis techniques were used to analyse the criteria used for student evaluation of teaching effectiveness in college and university home economics programmes. Student evaluation forms were obtained from 29 state institutions representing 21 states. The evaluation forms varied in length from seven to 36 objective items. Most provided for flexibility. including such options as add-on items, open-ended response format, and choice of forms. The evaluation criteria fell into six categories: course organization and content, course requirements, evaluation procedures, student participation, teaching skills, and global value of course. All of the institutions included items related to teaching skills. This was also the most heavily weighted factor, accounting for nearly 40% of the total evaluation. This is a significant finding, given that many college and university faculty have limited opportunities to develop teaching skills prior to beginning an academic career. Home economics administrators might use the results of the study to design faculty development programmes to help both novice and experienced faculty acquire or improve the skills on which they are being evaluated.

The multidimensionality of students' evaluations of teaching effectiveness: The generality of factor structures across academic discipline, instructor level, and course level

Factor analyses of student evaluations of teaching effectiveness were conducted for a total group of 24,158 courses and for each of 21 different subgroups derived from the total group. The subgroups were constructed to differ in terms of instructor level (teaching assistants or regular faculty), course level (undergraduate or graduate), and academic discipline. The same nine factors that the Student Evaluation of Educational Quality (SEEQ) instrument was designed to measure were consistently identified in each of the 22 different factor analyses and all factor structures were remarkably well defined and consistent. Correlations between factor scores based on the total group factor analysis and the 21 subgroup factor analyses were very high and most were greater than .99. Because of the large number and diversity of classes in this study, the results provide stronger support for the generality of the factor structure underlying students' evaluations of teaching effectiveness than does any previous research.

Student Assessment of Teaching Effectiveness in a Multi-Instructor Course for Multidisciplinary Health Professional Students

Student evaluations of teaching effectiveness in a large multi-instructor human anatomy course for students from four professionalprograms (nursing, dental hygiene, pharmacy, and physical education) were examined over a three-year period to assess the influence of professional program on student ratings of instruction. In spite of wide differences in mean achievement, students in the four professional groups were relatively consistent in their differential evaluations of the three course instructors and in their evaluations of learner motivational and course performance dimensions of instruction. Results supportedpreviousfindings regarding both (a) the internal consistency and interrater reliability of student evaluations of instruction in a course format increasingly being used in health professional education and (b) the needfor multiple assessments of instruction over time before generalizations can be made about an individual instructor's teaching skill.

Performance Evaluation of College and University Faculty: An Economic Perspective

This article applies the economic model of utility maximization to two important controversies in the area of faculty performance evaluation: the relationship between teaching effectiveness and research productivity and the validity of student evaluations of teaching effectiveness. It is argued that the economic model provides plausible explanations for many seemingly anomalous results from the empirical literature and, at the same time, suggests appealing avenues for improving the statistical methodology used in estimating relationships required in order to formulate genuinely optimal performance evaluation methods.

Identifying and Adjusting for Biases in Student Evaluations of Instruction: Implications for Validity

Student evaluations of teaching effectiveness are widely used for improvement of instruction and for administrative decision-making. Several kinds of contaminating variables may influence these ratings. Criteria for identifying such contaminants are set forth. Results of a search for extraneous, biasing variables at the high school level are reported. Of the several potential extraneous influences studied, student motivation/preference and class size meet the criteria. It is concluded that student rating forms should make provisions for adjusting for these and similar unfair influences.

Validity research on student evaluations of teaching effectiveness: Individual student observations versus class mean observations

Among the several substantive methodological issues in statistical research on possible relationships between student evaluations of teaching effectiveness and student achievement is the issue of whether it is preferable to use individual students or class means as observations. The problem is illuminated in this paper through Monte Carlo simulation experiments employing a general model which may be used to represent validity or invalidity of student evaluations of teaching through appropriate specification of the numerical parameters of the model. The results suggest the superiority of class means, because statistics based on class mean observations do better at manifesting the true condition under both cases: validity and invalidity.

Impact of work experience on the validity of student evaluations of teaching effectiveness.

Impact of work experience on the validity of student evaluations of teaching effectiveness.

Impact of work experience on the validity of student evaluations of teaching effectiveness.

Impact of work experience on the validity of student evaluations of teaching effectiveness.

An Investigation of the Relationship Among Teaching Evaluation, Research and Ability

This article addresses an important controversial issue in higher education. Do faculty research activities complement and strengthen the teaching role, or do they occur at the expense of classroom teaching? For the most part, all we have had up to now is subjective opinion supported by much heat and little light. Wood and DeLorme use regression analysis in an effort to measure the impact of faculty research productivity and several other variables on student evaluations of teaching effectiveness. While some key questions remain unanswered, the authors have at least given us a start toward an objective method of approaching the issue.