Universalism and the spirit of sport: evidence from Greece and Australia

Despite the World Anti-Doping Code’s 11-value Spirit of Sport statement being declared the universal ethical basis for global sporting practice, there is no empirical evidence whether the Spirit statement is the universal ethical basis for sport. Best-worst scaling surveys were completed by five independent (two Greek and three Australian) to determine whether there is cultural variation in which values were considered important or unimportant to sport. The results indicate Greeks and Australians mostly agree about what is unimportant to sport, but vary in terms of what is considered important. The variation indicates that the ethical justification for anti-doping may be less than universal. Moreover, the findings point to the need for more research into the Spirit statement as the proscribed universal ethical basis for a global practice, including philosophical and ethical inquiry, and how people understand both the individual values and the Spirit statement as a whole.     

Exploring the use of best-worst scaling to elicit course experience questionnaire responses

Students are an important stakeholder group in the context of quality assurance in higher education. From their perspective as learners, students’ views on educational experiences are increasingly used as an indicator of educational quality. The Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) is a widely used quantitative tool to gauge students’ perceptions of degree programmes. With a view to enhancing the scope for differentiation between individual questionnaire items, this paper explores the use of best–worst scaling to elicit CEQ responses as an alternative to a ratings instrument. The data for this study were generated from a representative sample (n = 263) of graduates from a Dutch university. The survey focused on two core CEQ scales: Good Teaching and Generic Skills. The results show that the Generic Skills items were deemed more pertinent to the degree programme than were the ones related to Good Teaching, with problem-solving skills perceived as the most relevant aspect. Using latent class analysis, six groups of graduates were identified that differed mainly in terms of the relative importance of the skills attributes. Overall, this study shows how the features of best–worst scaling can be used to enhance the scope for discrimination between items in a degree programme evaluation.     

Student evaluation of teaching: the use of best–worst scaling

An important purpose of student evaluation of teaching is to inform an educator’s reflection about the strengths and weaknesses of their teaching approaches. Quantitative instruments are one way of obtaining student responses. They have traditionally taken the form of surveys in which students provide their responses to various statements using item-by-item agree/disagree ratings. Previous research has identified shortcomings of such rating scales, including response bias and the associated lack of discrimination amongst the items evaluated. In this paper, best–worst scaling is proposed as a novel method for quantitative teaching evaluation. The way in which best–worst scaling can be used in this context is illustrated in three different applications. Two applications demonstrate how it can be used for evaluations in a small-size classroom environment. The third application is a broader evaluation of university courses on a larger scale. In comparison with conventional rating scales, the best–worst scaling approach enables better highlighting of the differences between evaluation items. In doing so, it can provide enhanced guidance to educators in their reflection about their teaching. Moreover, implementation and analysis of a best–worst scaling evaluation is relatively straightforward, which establishes it a feasible method for teaching practitioners and researchers.