The 'Ideal Teacher'. Implications for student evaluation of teacher effectiveness

Assessment of teachers through student opinions has been the most used method to define the characteristics of teaching quality. There is no previous literature applying the Semantic Differential (SD) with this objective. SD can detect the attributes of the 'ideal teacher', and find the evaluative, emotional or affective components linked to this concept. In this work, we analyse the factorial structure of a SD scale, to test the hypothesis of the existence of EPA factors, usually found in research directed to different objects of attitude. The most relevant dimensions of the 'ideal teacher' show similar profiles to those dimensions obtained with other assessment procedures. This result confirms the adequacy of SD as an instrument to assess of quality teaching.