Student ratings and various instructional variables from a within-instructor perspective

The relationship between class size, instructional method, course level, reason for enrollment, and student ratings of instruction was assessed from a within-instructor perspective. Two hundred fifty-four pairs of courses taught by the same instructor were correspondingly identified and subjected to a stepwise multiple regression procedure. Only class size was found to be a significant predictor of ratings once individual differences between instructors were controlled, hence underlining the importance of (1) taking cognizance of the size of the course when using student ratings of instructors as a measure of teaching effectiveness, and (2) controlling for systematic variation due to instructor idiosyncracies in instructional research.     

Student ratings of college teaching: a comparison of faculty and their students

Based on the review of student ratings myths by Aleamoni (1987, 1999), a survey research design was used to analyse differences between college students' (n = 968) and faculty's (n = 34) perceptions. Generally, students held stronger beliefs in these myths, in that they believed faculty with excellent publication records were better qualified to evaluate teaching and that student ratings on single general items are accurate measures of teaching effectiveness. On the other hand, faculty believed that student ratings were invalid and unreliable. Further examination of student characteristics revealed that male students held stronger beliefs in these myths. Finally, students' beliefs in these myths were correlated with their actual ratings of nine dimensions of the Student Evaluation of Educational Quality. A discussion as well as suggestions for using student ratings is provided.     

Student voice: using qualitative feedback from students to enhance their university experience

Many performance indicators in Australian higher education are based on the quantitative data from student feedback surveys, while the qualitative data usually generated by these surveys receive relatively limited attention. This paper argues that these data, if collected and analysed in a systematic way, can be used as an effective and robust institutional performance indicator and can assist in the enhancement of the student experience. The paper describes a comparative analysis of qualitative data generated at a large metropolitan multi-campus university by the annual Course Experience Questionnaire during 2001–2011. In total, approximately 78,800 student open-ended comments have been analysed via CEQuery – a software tool that facilitates analysis of the written comments. The results compared across the years allow the university to identify key trends in student experience and areas that warrant an improvement focus. The paper provides examples on how the university uses the data. It concludes that to be successful, universities should include a focus on what students have to say in their own words and incorporate such feedback into their priorities.     

Guiding a diverse mix of first-year business students: implications for university administrators,instructors and students

This article describes a collaborative research project by the institutional research group and a team of faculty members at a Canadian university. In response to an increasingly diverse mix of students, the researchers set out to develop an understanding of relationships between student characteristics, categorized as demographic differences, personal attributes and academic preparedness, and student outcomes measured by both grades and student perceptions. Significant differences were found in grades outcomes based on characteristics such as international status, secondary school grades, study habits and writing skills. However, these differences were not evident in student perceptions of course value or learning achievement. This study has important implications for university administrators (recruiting, intake assessment and student support), instructors (understanding of diversity characteristics and how students perceive learning experience) and for students, who can be given an opportunity to better understand how their own personal characteristics might affect their learning experiences and outcomes.     

A hierarchical approach to Students’ Assessments of Instruction

A teacher evaluation system can be threatening to faculty, especially if used for summative decisions. Therefore, it is important to obtain valid and pertinent information. Since students are extensively exposed to course elements, students’ evaluation of instruction should be one of several components in the teacher evaluation system. Since traditional methods, such as Cronbach’s alpha and ordinary least squares regression, do not address the hierarchical data of the classroom, the current study used the statistical techniques of confirmatory factor analysis and hierarchical linear modelling in order to properly investigate the reliability and validity of the Students’ Assessment of Instruction (SAI) instrument. Use of hierarchical linear modelling to analyse teacher evaluation instruments could not be found in the literature, although it has been used in educational settings. This study will illustrate its usefulness in determining what measures are related, either as evidence of validity or as a bias, to instructional effectiveness. Student responses were also compared with faculty self-evaluations, one indicator of effective teaching, in order to determine if the SAI does measure instructional effectiveness. Overall, the SAI was found to have good reliability and validity with relatively few biases and could be used to extract five distinguishable traits of instructional effectiveness.     

The influence of students' values and educational attitudes on their evaluation of faculty

The study determined the influence of students' values and educational attitudes on their evaluation of faculty. Sixty-five graduate students completed an evaluation form, a value survey, and an attitude scale at the end of an adult learning theory course. Multiple regression and path analysis showed that (a) educational attitudes and selected values accounted for 27% of the variance in student evaluation of faculty, (b) educational attitudes were responsible for 8% of the variance in student evaluation of faculty, and (c) values per se were not significantly related to student evaluation of faculty. A path model suggested that values influenced student evaluation of faculty through educational attitudes. The findings suggested that students' values and attitudes play a major role in their evaluation of faculty and should be recognized by teachers when interpreting the results of such ratings.     

Web‐based student feedback: comparing teaching‐award and research‐award recipients

We examined web‐based ratings and open‐ended comments of teaching‐award winners (n = 120) and research‐award winners (n = 119) to determine if teaching‐award winners received more favourable ratings and comments on RateMyProfessors.com. As predicted, students rated teaching‐award winners higher than research‐award winners on measures of teaching quality (i.e. helpfulness and clarity). A higher percentage of teaching‐award recipients relative to research‐award recipients received positive open‐ended comments about competence, use of humour, clarity, appearance and personality as well as both positive and negative open‐ended comments about level of course difficulty. We discuss implications of these findings for lending credibility to the RateMyProfessors.com indices and for promoting published faculty evaluations at post‐secondary institutions more generally.     

The significance of circumstances for college students' ratings of their teachers and courses

Although firm generalizations and conclusions cannot yet be drawn from the extant research on the effects on teacher and course ratings of the circumstances surrounding these evaluations, at least some studies have shown that college students' ratings of their teachers and courses are somewhat higher when students remain anonymous rather than identifying themselves, when the purported use of the ratings is an official or administrative one for use in salary, promotion, or tenure considerations rather than otherwise, and when the instructor is present rather than absent during the rating session. (The differences between each of these contrasted circumstances are usually rather small and do not inevitably appear across studies.) Certain variations in rating format have been found to make a difference in the ratings obtained, whereas other have not. From limited evidence, the exact timing (or occasion) of evaluation appears not to be important to ratings. Variability in sampling procedures, as it affects the composition of students available to complete rating forms, may or may not turn out to be a generally important element in ratings (as directly relevant data are collected). The analysis concludes with a discussion of (1) the presumed bias in ratings produced in certain of the rating conditions and (2) the more general issue of the comparability of ratings made in different circumstances of evaluation.     

The quality of guidance and feedback to students

The paper presents research findings on students’ experiences of the provision both of guidance and feedback, and with respect to examinations as well as coursework assignments. A first‐ and a final‐year bioscience course unit were surveyed in each of three contrasting university departments. The resulting dataset comprised 782 completed student questionnaires and 23 group interviews with a total of 69 students. Although the questionnaire data provided a robust overall picture of the students’ perceptions of guidance and feedback across the six units, the interview data made possible a much finer‐grained analysis of their experiences. At the core of this analysis was a guidance and feedback loop, within which six interrelated steps have been picked out, beginning with the students’ prior experiences of cognate assessments and closing with the potential of what has been learned from a given task to feed forward into subsequent work. By pinpointing potential troublespots, the framework can serve as a valuable diagnostic as well as analytical tool.     

The mythology of feedback

Much of the general education and discipline-specific literature on feedback suggests that it is a central and important element of student learning. This paper examines feedback from a social process perspective and suggests that feedback is best understood through an analysis of the interactions between academics and students. The paper argues that these two groups will have their own mythology of feedback and that this will inform their beliefs, attitudes and behaviours in the feedback process. Where there are different mythologies, the outcome will be dissonance. The paper reports on a study in which a 15-item questionnaire was distributed to academics and students in a School of Law and a School of Management. Responses were received from 91 academics and 1197 students. The data suggests that academics and students have different perceptions of feedback and this creates dissonance as the two groups offer different interpretations of the same feedback events.     

Factorial Validity of Student Ratings of Instruction

This study tested the Systematic Distortion Hypothesis by examining the factorial validity of student ratings of university teaching. Factorial validity is defined as the degree to which covariance among judged traits resembles the actual or true covariation of observable behaviors underlying these traits. Although many studies have examined the factorial validity of ratings, results are inconsistent. The present study used a more complete methodology to address some of the limitations of previous studies. Student ratings of teaching and measurements of actual teaching behaviors were obtained for 32 instructors. Student ratings were compared to frequency counts of actual teaching behaviors obtained from videotape and to students’ similarity judgments of teacher characteristics. It was found, first, that the structure of student ratings showed a moderately strong relation to the structure of actual behaviors, and a somewhat stronger relation to the structure of conceptual associations; and second, that the effects of systematic distortion were more pronounced for low-inference student ratings than for high-inference ratings.     

熵值距离的离群点检测及其在学生评教中的应用

离群数据检测是找出与正常数据不一致的数据。学生评教中由于某种原因,会出现一些评教噪声数据。针对学生评教中噪声数据的特征,提出了一个基于熵值距离的离群点检测算法,该算法通过比较每个数据点所对应的熵值和整个数据集的熵值,来判断数据点的离群程度。仿真结果表明该算法对学生评教中出现的噪声数据具有较好的过滤效果。     

美国教师教育中对实习生的评价研究——以马塞诸塞州某州立大学教育学院为例

本研究以美国马塞诸塞州某州立大学教育学院为案例,对美国职前教师教育中实习生的评价体系作了研究。美国职前教师教育中对实习生有系统而全面的评价标准,SIOP和PPA是重要的评价工具,评价指标体系具体、清晰,评价主体多元且权责明确,并且实习成绩与教师资格证的申请紧密相关,这些对我国教师教育中的实习管理都有借鉴意义。     

The quality of student ratings of teacher behaviour

In a research project into the effectiveness of mathematics teaching in the first year of secondary education, external observers and students rated teachers' behaviour. The reliability and validity of both methods were established. The results show that teacher behaviour is assessed well when student ratings are aggregated at the classroom level. The quality of aggregated student ratings is as good as the quality of data from external observers. The predictive validity of aggregated student ratings is higher than the predictive validity of external observations when subject motivation is taken as a dependent variable.     

教师专业化背景下培养师范生语言能力的策略研究

语言是教师教育教学的重要媒介,教师专业化对教师教育教学能力提出更高要求.以提高语言能力为抓手,可以带动教师教育教学水平的提高.实现教师专业化.师范教育作为教师专业化的第一阶段,应为师范生从教能力打下坚实的基础.目前师范生语言能力与教师专业化要求有很大距离,师范院校应根据师范生语言能力存在的不足,采取有针对性的策略、措施培养师范生的语言能力.     

专家协同强化反馈教师教育模式实验研究

以教学技能培训、教学反馈技术、现场指导技术等为干预手段的“专家协同强化反馈”教师教育模式,可以有效地提高教师的教学监控能力。实验验证了教师教学活动是由认识活动决定的,而学生经常性的反馈可以使教师对自己的教学行为获得准确和客观的认识;教师具有不断提高自我的内在需求,对于学生的反馈和专家的意见会有积极接纳的态度;教师教学能力的发展与其教龄不是线性函数关系,需要自我觉醒、专家的扶持和教育对象的认同;任教班级学生对教师教学行为的评价能较准确地反映教师的教学监控能力水平;以教学技能培训、教学反馈技术、现场指导技术等为干预手段可以改进教师的教学行为;“专家协同强化反馈”教师教育模式能帮助教师提高教学监控能力。     

大学师生关系：问题与对策

当前,大学师生关系由于受到高校扩招和市场机制的影响,存在冷漠化、利益化、简单化、自由化、紧张化等问题。改善大学师生关系,教师一要确立知识上的实质性权威;二要真正成为学生的“益友良师”;三要不断进行教学创新。学生则既要“因教而学”,又要发展自主、主动意识。     

高等院校师范生技能培养策略

教学改革是一个全面的系统工程,使高等院校师范生的技能培养变得更为重要。作为未来的教育者,在学生期间的教育技能培养将影响其未来的教育方式和方法。因此本文探讨师范生技能培养策略,重点围绕现代教育技术的培养,根据对师范生的要求,提出了相关策略以供同行参考。     

高校学生会干部素质养成途径初探

高校学生会干部在高校中扮演着管理者与被管理的双重身份,并且时刻需要发挥模范带头作用。本文在对学生会干部重要作用作用认识的基础上,明确了学生干部应当具备的素质,并对这些素质养成提出了培养途径建议。