Faculty attitudes toward student evaluation of teaching

This study dealt with university faculty attitudes toward the validity of and varying uses for student evaluations of teaching. It was hypothesized that faculty attitudes toward the potential uses of student evaluations would be systematically related to a professor's a priori frame of reference regarding the validity of these instruments. On the basis of responses to selected questionnaire items, faculty were divided into those whose frame of reference (1) opposed the idea that student evaluations could be made valid, (2) supported the idea that existing evaluation forms were valid, and (3) were uncommitted regarding this validity question. A fourth group, administrators at the university, were also surveyed. Large and consistent differences among these groups were found on policy matters such as the use of student evaluations in tenure and promotion decisions, in providing information to students to help them choose courses, and on a variety of other issues. In each case the results supported the hypothesis.Authors' names are ordered randomly.     

Comparing Faculty and Student Perceptions Regarding Factors That Affect Student Retention in Online Education

This qualitative study compared faculty and student perceptions regarding factors that affect student retention in online courses in an attempt to more effectively address the problem of attrition. A grounded study method was used to interview students taking online courses, analyze their responses related to the critical factors that affect student retention, and compare them with those given by expert online faculty documented by Gaytan (2013). Among the various findings, two are considered critical: online students would like to receive more instruction from their professors and more comprehensive feedback that would allow them to engage in corrective behaviors to improve performance. Comparing faculty and student responses related to the factors that affect student retention could give online program administrators and faculty advisors a better understanding of these critical factors to be able to respond to the student retention challenge more effectively.     

Defining appropriate professional behavior for faculty and university students on social networking websites

The vast majority of university students have profiles on social networking sites (e.g., Myspace, Facebook) (Salaway et al. 2008). However, it is yet to be determined what role this rapidly evolving method of communication will play in an academic setting. Data for the current study was collected from 459 university students and 159 university faculty members. Participants’ opinions regarding faculty/student interaction on social networking sties (SNSs) were analyzed. Over one-third of the students and a quarter of the faculty participants reported that it is inappropriate for faculty members to have accounts on SNSs. Significant disagreement existed between the faculty and students, as well as among the faculty and among the students regarding what constitutes appropriate professional professor/student interaction on SNSs.     

ACADEMIC DISHONESTY: A Zero Tolerance Professor and Student Registration Choices

College and university faculty and administrators are responsible for constructing academic honesty policies and communicating them to students. This is often attempted through institutional honesty policies and university-wide honor codes. While these approaches have been widely researched, less attention has been given to the role of individual faculty members. That role is examined in this study by addressing student reactions to professors based on their academic honesty policies. In addition to demographic information, data were gathered about student attitudes and beliefs concerning academic dishonesty and their decision to enroll in or avoid a course being taught by a professor with zero tolerance for academic dishonesty. The findings regarding different instructors’ approaches toward academic dishonesty indicate that an intolerant policy will keep dishonest students away, but at a price—it will also detract many honest students.     

The challenge of Improving Teaching in a Globalizing World

The USA has served as a beacon of hope for thousands of foreign students and academics with its diverse and superior opportunities created by a system of meritocracy unparalleled in the world. In keeping with other industries, academia is increasingly becoming a global village and foreign‐born professors constitute a large proportion of university faculties. As higher education is increasingly accessible to students with varying levels of academic preparedness, faculties have become more aware of the importance of the opinions of students – the system’s consumers – on teaching. Bearing in mind the ‘similarity‐attraction paradigm’, this study sought to examine whether teaching evaluations are affected by cultural similarity or difference between students and instructors. Our data are based on teaching ratings from the largest Israeli public college. The analysis relates to 42,874 teaching ratings of 768 instructors, of whom 602 are Israeli‐born and 166 are immigrants from the Former Soviet Union (FSU). The findings indicate that FSU immigrant students awarded higher evaluations to FSU immigrant faculty members than their native‐born peers. Similarly, Israeli‐born students awarded higher evaluations to Israeli‐born faculty than the FSU immigrant students. We conclude by discussing the educational and managerial implications of these findings for higher education institutions with ethnically diverse faculty and students.     

Exploring burnout among university faculty: incidence,performance, and demographic issues

This study examines burnout and related issues among 265 university faculty members. The study estimates the percentage of incidence of highest levels of burnout is at half the rate of the general workforce. Female faculty members have significantly higher mean scores on emotional exhaustion than males, while male faculty have higher scores on depersonalization. Significant differences were not found across race/ethnicity groups but age is inversely correlated to emotional exhaustion. Burnout shows significant correlations with numbers of students taught, time invested in various activities, and numerical student evaluations. Suggestions are given to administrators for using a preventive strategy to anticipate burnout, rather than relying on reactive techniques, once it has occurred.     

Web-based student evaluations of professors: the relations between perceived quality,easiness and sexiness

College students critique their professors' teaching at RateMyProfessors.com, a web page where students anonymously rate their professors on Quality, Easiness, and Sexiness. Using the self-selected data from this public forum, we examine the relations between quality, easiness, and sexiness for 3190 professors at 25 universities. For faculty with at least ten student posts, the correlation between quality and easiness is 0.61, and the correlation between quality and sexiness is 0.30. Using simple linear regression, we find that about half of the variation in quality is a function of easiness and sexiness. When grouped into sexy and non-sexy professors, the data reveal that students give sexy-rated professors higher quality and easiness scores. If these findings reflect the thinking of American college students when they complete in-class student opinion surveys, then universities need to rethink the validity of student opinion surveys as a measure of teaching effectiveness. High student opinion survey scores might well be viewed with suspicion rather than reverence, since they might indicate a lack of rigor, little student learning, and grade inflation.     

Faculty and student perceptions of outstanding university teachers in the USA and Russia

The majority of research that relates teacher characteristics to student learning in the university has come from Western universities. Using various methodologies, research continues to examine the characteristics of outstanding university teachers. Much of that research in the USA assesses faculty and student perspectives. However, there are nearly no cross‐cultural comparisons on this issue. We examined faculty and student perspectives about outstanding university teachers in the USA and in Russia. Faculty members and students at the University of Central Arkansas, Orel State University and Moscow City University rated the qualities of outstanding teachers on the Teacher Behaviors Checklist (TBC). Results showed significant positive correlations for the relative importance of teacher characteristics across the six participant groups. There did not appear to be any substantial differences between the American and Russian counterparts for 21 of the 28 specific teacher characteristics. The comparison of American and Russian faculty and students suggests more universality than cross‐cultural differences in the characteristics of outstanding university teachers.     

Online Course Evaluations: Faculty Perspective and Strategies for Improved Response Rates

This article provides an overview of issues involved with traditional paper versus online course evaluations. Data were gathered from university faculty, who transitioned from traditional paper to online course evaluations. Faculty preferred traditional course evaluations versus online course evaluations by a small margin. However, faculty overwhelmingly believed that traditional course evaluations result in higher response rates from students. Incentives were also believed by faculty to increase student response rates. Suggestions from faculty on how to improve student response rates are also provided in this article.     

Instructional improvement and student engagement in post-secondary engineering courses: the complexity underlying small effect sizes

The current study leveraged a professional development programme for engineering faculty at a large research university to examine the impact of instructional improvement on student engagement. Professors who participated in the professional development were observed three times and rated using an existing observation protocol. Students in courses with instructors who participated and did not participate in the professional development were surveyed about their classroom engagement. The responses were used to conduct quasi-experimental comparisons. Results indicated that students in courses with professors who participated in the professional development self-reported 3% more behavioural and 2% more cognitive engagement than students with professors who did not participate. Within professional development group, follow-up comparisons showed that students in courses with the highest rated instructors self-reported 7% more cognitive engagement than students with lower ranked professors. Thematic coding of the qualitative data suggests that the highest rated instructors may have achieved these gains through the use of three domain general instructional strategies: activating prior knowledge, facilitating classroom interaction and promoting reflection. Findings are contextualised within extant literature reporting similar effect sizes, and implications for future engagement research from a classroom systems perspective are discussed.     

Student faculty evaluation (SFE) at Jordanian universities: a student perspective

This study is the first to address student evaluation of faculty members (SFE) from a student perspective at a major Jordanian public university using a comprehensive (71-item) questionnaire administered to 620 undergraduates. Addressed are students’ perceptions of the SFE process in terms of: (a) their paper-based vs. online-format preferences; (b) their beliefs about the process; (c) the standards they adopt in the evaluation; (d) the fruitfulness of SFE outcomes; and (e) their opinions about the evaluation instruments currently used at their institutions. It also explores whether students’ beliefs vary according to their gender, GPA and college (Educational Sciences vs. Sciences). The results reveal that most students prefer online evaluation, adopt academic rather than interpersonal criteria in their evaluation, have a low level of satisfaction with the impact of previous evaluations on faculty teaching behaviours and the evaluation instruments used at their institution. Additionally, the findings suggest that gender has a less influential role in shaping students’ beliefs about the SFE process compared to their college or GPA. The findings of this study and their implications are very useful pointers for faculty and higher education administrators, faculty members and students towards further improvement at higher education institutions.     

Individual assignments and academic dishonesty — Exploring the learning Conundrum

A survey of university business professors¹ focused on their use of individual assignments in courses and their views on cheating and its impact on student learning. Based on responses from 456 professors (37% response rate) from Ontario, Canada. it was concluded that most facult² believe that individual assignments are effective learning tools and that cheating on these assignments is a serious offence. They believe that cheating occurs widely, but continue to use these assessments, with some alterations, to ensure that students obtain learning benefits. The survey findings varied across disciplines and tenure status. A framework is proposed to explain the faculty perspective and the outcomes that professors experience. The adjustments they make to individual assignments are influenced by multiple factors that are internal (university policies and regulations) and external (internet usage) to the university. The discussion centres on the three stakeholders — faculty, students and administration — the need for culture change, and the role of honor codes in controlling cheating and supporting a learning environment.     

Investigating substantive and consequential validity of student ratings of instruction

This study aimed at exploring faculty and student perspectives on student evaluations, as well as identifying their perceptions of the usefulness and appropriateness of the ratings for evaluating teaching effectiveness. More specifically, the study aimed at identifying the consequences, both intended and unintended, of using the evaluations, in addition to better understanding the process students used in responding to evaluations and what use faculty members made of them. Two surveys were developed and placed on the website of the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment. Emails were sent to all students and faculty participating in evaluations soliciting their cooperation and requesting their input. Faculty and student perceptions were compared qualitatively and statistically. Results revealed that students and faculty believe in the effectiveness and usefulness of the system with the need to overcome some negative consequences and biases inherent in its application at the University. Recommendations for system improvement are provided.     

Assessing the quality of online courses from the students' perspective

The purpose of this study was to develop a survey based on the findings in existing research regarding students' perceptions and preferences related to online course delivery. Researchers have found that the following areas are important for student satisfaction with online instruction, interaction among students, quality and timely interaction between student and professor, consistent course design across courses, technical support availability, and flexibility of online courses compared to face-to-face. The student survey, once developed, was used to assess the quality of online course delivery by the faculty at a small upper level university in Texas. Results of the survey indicate that faculty at this institution are delivering online classes that meet the students' needs in regard to interaction with professors and classmates and course content. Results also indicate the need to develop a consistent course structure across classes and to provide extended technical support hours.     

Student plagiarism and faculty responsibility in undergraduate engineering labs

In undergraduate engineering labs, lab reports are routinely copied. By ignoring this form of plagiarism, teaching assistants and lab technicians neglect their role responsibility. By designing courses that facilitate it, however inadvertently, professors neglect their causal responsibility. Using the case of one university, we show via interviews and observation that such routine copying and faculty negligence are rampant. We suggest the latter be explicitly recognized as a cause of student dishonesty, and argue that it must be rectified before faculty earn the right to reform students. We also suggest that these findings are representative of, and therefore generalizable to, many universities’ undergraduate engineering and science labs.     

Disconnections Between Teacher Expectations and Student Confidence in Bioethics

This study examines how student practice of scientific argumentation using socioscientific bioethics issues affects both teacher expectations of students’ general performance and student confidence in their own work. When teachers use bioethical issues in the classroom students can gain not only biology content knowledge but also important decision-making skills. Learning bioethics through scientific argumentation gives students opportunities to express their ideas, formulate educated opinions and value others’ viewpoints. Research has shown that science teachers’ expectations of student success and knowledge directly influence student achievement and confidence levels. Our study analyzes pre-course and post-course surveys completed by students enrolled in a university level bioethics course (n = 111) and by faculty in the College of Biology and Agriculture faculty (n = 34) based on their perceptions of student confidence. Additionally, student data were collected from classroom observations and interviews. Data analysis showed a disconnect between faculty and students perceptions of confidence for both knowledge and the use of science argumentation. Student reports of their confidence levels regarding various bioethical issues were higher than faculty reports. A further disconnect showed up between students’ preferred learning styles and the general faculty’s common teaching methods; students learned more by practicing scientific argumentation than listening to traditional lectures. Students who completed a bioethics course that included practice in scientific argumentation, significantly increased their confidence levels. This study suggests that professors’ expectations and teaching styles influence student confidence levels in both knowledge and scientific argumentation.     

The student departure puzzle: do some faculties and programs have answers?

University attrition prevention strategies are typically generic, centrally managed, whole of university strategies that have emerged from an examination of whole of university attrition data. This paper takes an intra‐organisational comparative approach, through the examination of faculty and program attrition rates of students who joined an Australian university in the first term of 2004. The faculty with the highest attrition had a rate two‐and‐a‐half times that of the faculty with the lowest rate, and in programs with 40 or more students enrolled the program with the highest attrition had a rate over five times that of the program with the lowest rate. The paper identifies five practical implications of these findings and concludes that investigating the causes of these differences will help in understanding student attrition. It also suggests that universities wishing to reduce student attrition may benefit from adopting integrated and situated strategies that take into account faculty and program differences.     

Student Perspectives on Teaching and its Evaluation

The research on student ratings of instruction, while voluminous, has had minimal focus on the perceptions of the students who do the ratings. The current study explored student perspectives on course and teacher ratings as well as some issues related to teaching effectiveness and faculty roles. It was found that students are generally willing to do evaluations and to provide feedback, and have no particular fear of repercussions. However, they have little confidence that faculty or administrators pay attention to the results, and do not even consult the ratings themselves. The students view teaching and advising as the most important roles that should be played by faculty, yet project that faculty, while also viewing teaching as the most important, would rank research above the more student-interactive advising. Canonical correlations among various scales reveal a strong emphasis on such issues of the importance of faculty respect for student views.     

Reactions of professors to retirement: A comparison of retired faculty from three types of institutions

Dorfman et al. (1982) compared the professional activities of retired professors from liberal arts colleges, a comprehensive university, and a major research university. This companion piece based on the same survey compares the professors' reactions to retirement. Results show that a majority of faculty from all types of institutions plan for retirement, are positive about retirement, and give suggestions for institutional retirement policy. The retired professors recommend the following: (1) help in planning, (2) more information about retirement, (3) support for continued work, (4) gradual retirement. Major differences among institutions are the following: (1) comprehensive university faculty plan for retirement more than do faculty from the other institutions, (2) faculty from both universities begin financial planning at a younger age than do faculty from the liberal arts colleges, (3) research university faculty miss work and like having time to spend on professional activities more than do faculty from the other institutions.