Student personality differences are related to their responses on instructor evaluation forms

The relation of student personality to student evaluations of teaching (SETs) was determined in a sample of 144 undergraduates. Student Big Five personality variables and core self-evaluation (CSE) were assessed. Students rated their most preferred instructor (MPI) and least preferred instructor (LPI) on 11 common evaluation items. Pearson and partial correlations simultaneously controlling for six demographic variables, Extraversion, Conscientiousness and Openness showed that SETs were positively related to Agreeableness and CSE and negatively related to Neuroticism, supporting the three hypotheses of study. Each of these significant relations was maintained when MPI, LPI or a composite of MPI and LPI served as the SET criterion. For example, the MPI-LPI composite correlated .28 with Agreeableness, .35 with CSE and –.28 with Neuroticism. Similar correlations resulted for MPI and LPI. Hierarchical multiple regression demonstrated that the CSE was an independent predictor of MPI ratings, Agreeableness was an independent predictor of LPI ratings, and both the CSE and Agreeableness were independent predictors of MPI-LPI composite ratings. Neuroticism did not emerge as an independent predictor because of the substantial correlation between CSE and Neuroticism (r = .53) and because CSE had greater predictive capacity. This is the first study to incorporate the CSE construct into the SET literature.     

Student evaluation: The faculty responds

Results are presented of a survey of faculty members concerning their observations and opinions about the effects of student evaluation of instruction in a university where this practice had been a mandatory requirement for personnel evaluation purposes for several years. The respondents reported a definite reduction in morale and job satisfaction, changes in various instructional practices—mainly reduced course work demands on students and the occurrence of counterproductive actions as a result of this policy. Only limited expectations of improved ratings were indicated. There was also a clear division of opinion about the use of SEI ratings for personnel decisions that corresponded mainly with judgments about the validity of the ratings students provide.     

Student Perceptions of the Way that they are Supervised during Work Experience: an instrument and some findings

This paper is intended as a contribution to the debate and evaluation activity which in the UK is following Dearing's recommendation that more work experience should be provided for more higher education students. The paper gives an instrument for researching students’ perceptions of the roles their workplace supervisors play. Two surveys using the instrument and involving a total of 669 students on different courses in the field of teacher education are reported. In the surveys, the responses of many students suggested that they had received ‘good’ (i.e. theoretically desirable) supervision in the workplace but this was not the case for all students. There were for example clear differences across courses and, in addition, the course whose students appeared to have experienced the least desirable kind of supervision subsequently suffered the highest rate of student drop‐out. In contrast, students who had apparently received the ‘best’ kind of workplace supervision tended to be happier with their workplace experience as a whole. In discussing the findings, the paper draws attention to their limitations, pointing out that much more needs to be known about the work experience which is offered to HE students across the disciplines and across the country. The paper suggests that specific as well as general instruments will probably need to be developed for researching this and suggests that, since it is general, the instrument described in the paper might be useful to other HE researchers who wish to evaluate their students’ work experience. The paper concludes by situating the increasing interest in work experience for higher education students in the wider context in which links between ‘work’ and ‘education’ are becoming increasingly blurred.     

Meta-analysis of faculty's teaching effectiveness: Student evaluation of teaching ratings and student learning are not related

Student evaluation of teaching (SET) ratings are used to evaluate faculty's teaching effectiveness based on a widespread belief that students learn more from highly rated professors. The key evidence cited in support of this belief are meta-analyses of multisection studies showing small-to-moderate correlations between SET ratings and student achievement (e.g., Cohen, 1980, Cohen, 1981; Feldman, 1989). We re-analyzed previously published meta-analyses of the multisection studies and found that their findings were an artifact of small sample sized studies and publication bias. Whereas the small sample sized studies showed large and moderate correlation, the large sample sized studies showed no or only minimal correlation between SET ratings and learning. Our up-to-date meta-analysis of all multisection studies revealed no significant correlations between the SET ratings and learning. These findings suggest that institutions focused on student learning and career success may want to abandon SET ratings as a measure of faculty's teaching effectiveness.     

Student Success and Failure: As a matter of fact or just how they are portrayed?

This paper introduces and analyses three broad discourses of academic achievement and failure, specifically those that speak of students' deficits, disadvantages and differences. It draws on interview data collected from teachers working in Australian primary (elementary) and secondary (high) schools and on academic literature that speaks to the field. The paper argues that 'deficit', 'disadvantage' and 'difference' represent discourses of considerable influence in determining how teachers, students and parents define what constitutes success or failure in schools, which respective approaches educators employ, and the beliefs we hold about students who fail and those who succeed. In this respect, the paper is concerned with matters of inclusion and exclusion in schooling. In particular, we seek to tease out the stories that these discourses tell about student diversity, as a way of unmasking how students are differently represented and how these representations serve to include some and exclude others from the benefits of schooling and society more broadly.     

Student Loans: are the Policy Objectives being Achieved?

This paper examines two of the stated objectives of the government's student loans scheme, 'to increase the resources available to students' and 'to increase economic awareness among students, and their self reliance'. Following Farrell and Tapper (1992) we also consider a third, less explicit objective, that of exerting an influence on the shape of higher education itself, through economic pressure on students to select courses that are earnings related and vocationally oriented.
The results of a survey of a random sample of students conducted annually between 1992 and 1996 at the University of Brighton demonstrate a substantial increase in student debt over this period. Among students increasing support for the principles underlying the loan scheme was found, as were high levels of 'economic awareness' and 'self-reliance'. There was no evidence of a demand for changes in the pattern of course provision and it is suggested that this is because of the way in which students have responded to their changed financial situation, in particular the high reliance of many on part-time employment in preference to student loans and a desire to maximise current rather than future earnings.     

In practice: Student government: Friend or foe?

One of the most important and obvious, yet often neglected, places where leadership development can take place is student government. Here, a university president and a student body president tell the story of their unusual collaboration, which brought concepts from continuous quality improvement into the university and, in particular, into student government.     

Module Development Through Peer-assisted Student Support: An initial evaluation

The importance of effective module development in terms of content and delivery is becoming increasingly significant within higher education. The majority of evaluation exercises are relatively static and reactive, predominantly utilising standardised evaluation questionnaires. This paper examines the effectiveness of utilising peer-assisted student support, a form of student-centred learning to provide module feedback that cannot be easily identified through traditional methods. Data from meeting logs, observations, interviews and questionnaires demonstrates that student-centred learning feedback can enhance module development, identifying and prompting effective remedial action in shorter timescales. The paper therefore concludes that feedback from student-centred learning initiatives is a viable and dynamic alternative to traditional modes of module development that requires further consideration .     

Student use of PeerWise: A multi-institutional,multidisciplinary evaluation

This study explores the relationship between engagement with an online, free-to-use question-generation application (PeerWise) and student achievement. Using PeerWise, students can create and answer multiple-choice questions and can provide feedback to the question authors on question quality. This provides further scope for students to engage in discussion about the question with their peers. Data on PeerWise use and examination performance were collected from over 3000 students across six large undergraduate courses (in physics, chemistry and biology) over three academic years in three research-intensive UK universities. A reliable and valid measure of overall PeerWise activity was created and a multilevel model developed describing the relationship between PeerWise activity and student performance in end of course examinations. Using this approach, a significant positive association was found between students’ engagement with PeerWise and their academic attainment in end of course exams, even controlling for prior ability. The implications of these findings for educators are discussed.     

The Research Encounter: An Innovative Course Inclusion that Facilitates Student Engagement

The learning and engagement activity we describe was designed to demystify the research culture of the Health Faculty for first year students, and there are implications for practice in other fields. It is founded on the idea of research-based learning, which in its pure form is a respected pedagogical approach but problematic for large cohort (>500) first year students. As an assessment item, students were placed in small groups and were matched with faculty research staff and/or a research area to investigate. The students were surveyed before and after the research encounter; and results show that, among other findings, student engagement with peers and with the faculty were distinct positive outcomes.     

Student learning in science simulations: Design features that promote learning gains

This research examines science‐simulation software available for grades 6–12 science courses. The study presented, funded by the National Science Foundation, had two objectives: a literature synthesis and a product review. The literature synthesis examines research findings on grade 6–12 student learning gains and losses using virtual laboratories and science‐simulation software, derived from a review of 79 relevant studies identified. Based on that literature, significant aspects of how such products influence student learning are identified. Tables summarize the research‐based evidence about best practices in instructional design for such virtual lab and simulation products. Some products were then reviewed as case studies to determine in what ways and to what extent they implement such research‐identified best practices. The overall goal was to consider where the most progress is being made in effective virtual‐lab and simulation products, and what directions future development should take. The intent is to inform science educators, teachers, administrators, and policy makers who are using, buying, and examining middle and high school instructional materials. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 48: 1050–1078, 2011     

Select-a-Kibitzer: A Computer Tool that Gives Meaningful Feedback on Student Compositions

Select-a-Kibitzer is a computerized tool that gives feedback to students on their compositions in a unique way. The feedback is based on composition research which describes the process of writing as one of simultaneously solving multiple, possibly conflicting, constraints. In Select-a-Kibitzer, each constraint is personified by a different character. A student enters a composition into the tool and then asks for feedback. A variety of natural language processing techniques are used to analyze the text. Then, each of the characters gives feedback on the text from its particular point of view. Select-a-Kibitzer differs greatly from standard “style checker” mechanisms that focus on surface features of the text. By using Latent Semantic Analysis, Select-a-Kibitzer can address a wide range of meaning-oriented composition issues, including coherence, purpose, topic, and overall quality. This paper describes the composition research that forms the basis of the projec t, and the interaction and implementation of Select-a-Kibitzer. It focuses on techniques for using LSA to provide feedback about the meaning of the composition.     

School-wide Positive Behavior Support: Addressing Behavior Problems that Impede Student Learning

The school-wide application of positive behavior support (PBS) is a prevention-oriented approach to student discipline that is characterized by its focus on defining and teaching behavioral expectations, rewarding appropriate behaviors, continual evaluation of its effectiveness, and the integration of supports for individuals, groups, the school as a whole, and school/family/community partnerships. Although school-wide PBS has been implemented in hundreds of schools thus far, many professionals in education and psychology remain, for the most part, unfamiliar with this proactive alternative for increasing positive student behavior. This article reviews the foundations and core components of school-wide PBS, provides a case example of the implementation and preliminary evaluation of school-wide PBS in an urban middle school, and summarizes critical issues and future research directions in this area of considerable importance to professionals in educational psychology and related fields.     

Student evaluation of instruction: comparison between in-class and online methods

This study compares student evaluations of instruction that were collected in-class with those gathered through an online survey. The two modes of administration were compared with respect to response rate, psychometric characteristics and mean ratings through different statistical analyses. Findings indicated that in-class evaluations produced a significantly higher response rate than online evaluation. In addition, Rasch analysis showed that mean ratings obtained in in-class evaluation were significantly higher than those obtained in online evaluation. Finally, the distributions of student attendance and expected grade in both modes were compared via chi-square tests, and were found to differ in the two modes of administration.     

Student Opinion on Teaching: Threat or Chance for Dialogue/

The majority of research on faculty-student interaction has been primarily quantitative to date and has focused primarily on determining what kinds of interactions students have with faculty. This study furthers the literature on faculty-student interaction, taking a qualitative approach to examine what types of interactions with faculty students find meaningful. Our findings indicate that students appreciate the types of interactions that research shows benefits them the most, suggesting that there is less of a disconnect between the types of faculty behaviors that benefit students and the types of faculty behaviors that students appreciate than many might assume.