Student evaluations and the university professor: Caveat professor

Research evaluating student ratings of professors reveals continued controversy. Interpretations of student ratings of professors in terms of face validity are marred by halo affects, the apparent inability of even skilled raters to judge complex behaviors adequately, the salience of personality features in judging tasks, and a host of other variables. Research shows student ratings to be reliable, but design flaws for simple, first order, predictions usually omit the teacher as a cause. Interpretations of research are confusing because of justifications that indiscriminately involve nomological and applied models. Rating scale peculiarities, questionable validity, and scholastic homogeneity lead to diverse professional attitudes towards student opinions of professors, with a learner or consumer emphasis occupying the extremes. Several evaluation schemes are noted along with behaviors that tend to produce favorable student opinions.     

Student note-taking related to university examination performance

Student note-taking is an almost universal activity among university students, yet few naturalistic studies have examined relationships between note-taking practices and subsequent examination performance. Complete sets of notes on an introductory psychology course, involving 75 lectures presented by ten instructors, were obtained from nineteen male and nineteen female students. Notes on ten selected lectures (one per instructor) were analysed, and information derived about class attendance and the quantity, organization, and presentation of the notes. Variables based on this information were then correlated with performance on two three-hour final examination papers (one multiple-choice, one essay). High correlations were found between the quantity of notes and examination performance. Surprisingly, these correlations increased in subsamples consisting of those students who attended class most diligently. The correlations involving the multiple-choice examination tended to be higher than those involving the essay examination, most probably because of wider sampling of lecture content and a more factual orientation in the multiple-choice examination. The results appear to conflict with the advice given in student study guides, many of which suggest that students should be very selective and concise in their note-taking.     

初探创新高校学生党员活动

本文就创新学生党员活动的活动内容、活动形式和活动栽体探讨新时期创新高校大学生党员活动.     

美国高校学生资助体系的目标分析

美国高校的学生资助经过几十年的发展,目前已经形成了一套目标多样、种类齐全、行之有效的多目标(Multiple-Purposes)体系.本文考察了美国高校学生资助的目标发展进程,总结并分析了它的目标功能,并对其可能的发展进行探索和分析.     

试论大学校长评价

大学校长(团队)是高校精神的塑造和维系者.要正确评价一个大学,首先要正确评价该校的校长.笔者提出将国家高级人才培育基地的核心领军人才校长视为核心人力资本进行评价与激励,使他们视校长这一岗位为毕生珍惜的荣誉,能为大学发展担责,而不仅视之为完成组织任务和自身职业生涯的某个过程,应始终以高度负责任的态度看待大学管理,由此,把评价理论及时引入对大学校长的评估管理之中很有必要.还通过比较国外大学校长评价实践,指出我国大学校长评价中存在的五个问题,并针对这些问题,通过专家访谈、问卷调查提出了相应的评价指标.     

网络平台下高校学籍管理的实践与研究

学籍管理是学生在校期间全过程情况的记载和控制,是教学管理工作不可或缺的组成部分,科学合理的管理有利于人才培养的需要。从事学籍管理的工作者应该适应网络化信息化的时代要求,依托网络平台,遵循学籍发展规律,并结合本校的具体情况,引进新思路新方法,从而提高学籍管理工作的效率和水平。     

Student involvement in university policy groups and resultant attitude change

Expressed satisfaction of university students toward their campus environment was measured before and after three conditions: (1) participation in small-group discussions that had as their purpose the formulation of recommendations to be presented to the university president and the administrative council, (2) participation in small-group discussions that provided students an opportunity to express feelings to each other, and (3) no treatment.Overall satisfaction with the university environment was not altered. Students in the Experimental Group expressed an increased satisfaction with several specific areas of their environment. The findings indicate that students would benefit from programs that allow them to express opinions and ideas concerning changes and development of their environment.     

Student evaluations of university teaching: A cross-cultural perspective

The applicability paradigm developed by Marsh (1981) was used to investigate the validity of a U.S.-developed model of teaching effectiveness and two related questionnaires at campuses in six different countries representing very different cultural, economic, and philosophical traditions. The data supported the reliability, appropriateness, and to some extent the convergent and discriminant validity of the instruments. Similar patterns of item salience and differentiation between “good” and “poor” lecturers were also identified. Thus, the results generally supported the cross-cultural validity of these two instruments and their underlying model of teaching. This research was supported by funding from the Committee on Research and Conference Grants, University of Hong Kong.     

Student engagement and departure intention: an Australian university perspective

This study addresses the departure intentions of an Australian university business student cohort that is characterised by high levels of diversity in pre-entry attributes. The study investigates the level of student engagement using the academic and social integration components of the Student Engagement Questionnaire (SEQ) based on Tinto’s model of institutional departure. The results showed that the pre-entry attributes of students such as gender and low socio-economic status, together with first year of study, were not significant in determining student engagement. There were, however, significant differences in departure intention based on student engagement, particularly in terms of interaction with administrative support services and satisfaction with the educational experience. Overall, the findings support the view that institutional efforts to engage business students in the early stages of their studies minimise the risk of departure.     

Student teachers and cultural diversity in an Australian regional university

This article examines student teachers' discursive constructions of difference, cultural diversity and race as they write and talk about their cultures and identities in relation to teaching and learning in the first year of a Primary Teaching Degree in a regional Australian university.
The qualitative case study which informs this paper considered the discursive resources that students bring to teacher education from their past experiences and contact with cultural differences in communities, families and schools. It examined various discourses around cultural diversity that are available to them in the teacher education course and how their discursive practices are mediated and reconstructed in the particular university context. A major goal was to explore how universities in largely homogeneous settings might firstly work with the resources that students bring to teacher education and, secondly, assist students to consider the implications of cultural and linguistic diversity for teaching language and literacy.     

大学生群体性突发事件的类型与应对机制探索

本文在对近年来我国高校突发事件分析的基础上,围绕大学生群体性突发事件的类型和特点进行研究,重点探索了大学生群体性突发事件发生的原因、应对理念及应对机制的构建。为有效预防大学生群体性突发事件,降低此类事件导致的社会伤害、高校不和谐、个人损害提供了一定的解决思路。     

The Emotionally Affected University Student: support from the university community

The study measured the general attitudes towards disability of academics, administrative staff, and students in a small rural University. Respondents were also asked to comment on the nature of support that might be provided for a student with an emotional disability. There were some significant differences in level and nature of support for students with an emotional disability among academics, administrative staff, and students. These differences were related to the levels of comfort with, and sympathy felt towards, students with an emotional disability. However, overall the results suggest that university students with expressed emotional difficulties are liable to be relatively negatively regarded and are not liable to receive much concrete assistance for the difficulties they face. It is proposed that the data supports the notion that academics, of all the groups measured, are best placed to decide types of support for students with an emotional disability on a case by case basis.     

浅谈当前高校学生党支部建设

高等学校的学生党支部是党在高校的最基层组织,是党联系广大学生的桥梁和纽带。当前加强高校学生党支部建设,对深化高校党建工作,保证党的领导,保持学生党员的先进性、发挥先锋模范作用,加强学生的思想政治教育,推进校风、学风建设具有非常重要的意义。     

Professional loyalties of university academics: Four ideal types

University academics display a high degree of internal differentiation in terms of their professional interests, diverse roles and divided loyalties. Perceptions from academics at the University of Melbourne regarding these elements are used in this paper to construct a typology which distinguishes four different groups according to their levels of research and institutional commitment. Such typologies serve to highlight not only the essential nature of universities but also the importance of the research culture. Implications of emphasising research are seen to have possible detrimental effects on the functioning of a university and these are addressed.     

高校教学评价制度存在的问题及其对策研究

本文在分析当前高校对任课教师进行评价的具体方式的基础上,对高校现行评价制度中存在的主要问题进行了分析,并从完善高校任课教师评价制度的角度,结合高校的实际情况提出了完善策略。     

Students' evaluation and instructors' self-evaluation of university instruction

The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship between students' evaluations of university instruction and self-ratings of instructors. The sample consisted of 52 instructors, from the School of Education at Tel-Aviv University, who taught 93 classes. The instructors, as well as their students, responded to a 20-item instructional-practices questionnaire. Instructor self-ratings had only a modest relationship with the ratings given by students (a median correlation of .28). Discrepancies between instructor ratings and ratings given by the students were further analyzed for (1) varying training in teaching - no difference was found; and (2) number of years of teaching experience - differences were noted; the self-ratings of less experienced instructors were closer to student ratings.