Student Evaluation of Teaching Effectiveness: An assessment of student perception and motivation
- 1 January 2003
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis Ltd in Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education
- Vol. 28 (1), 71-88
- https://doi.org/10.1080/02602930301683
Abstract
Over the past century, student ratings have steadily continued to take precedence in faculty evaluation systems in North America and Australia, are increasingly reported in Asia and Europe and are attracting considerable attention in the Far East. Since student ratings are the most, if not the only, influential measure of teaching effectiveness, active participation by and meaningful input from students can be critical in the success of such teaching evaluation systems. Nevertheless, very few studies have looked into students' perception of the teaching evaluation system and their motivation to participate. This study employs expectancy theory to evaluate some key factors that motivate students to participate in the teaching evaluation process. The results show that students generally consider an improvement in teaching to be the most attractive outcome of a teaching evaluation system. The second most attractive outcome was using teaching evaluations to improve course content and format. Using teaching evaluations for a professor's tenure, promotion and salary rise decisions and making the results of evaluations available for students' decisions on course and instructor selection were less important from the students' standpoint. Students' motivation to participate in teaching evaluations is also impacted significantly by their expectation that they will be able to provide meaningful feedback. Since quality student input is an essential antecedent of meaningful student evaluations of teaching effectiveness, the results of this study should be considered thoughtfully as the evaluation system is designed, implemented and operated.Keywords
This publication has 32 references indexed in Scilit:
- Business students’ perceptions of faculty evaluationsInternational Journal of Educational Management, 2001
- How Fair are Student Ratings in Assessing the Teaching Performance of University Teachers?Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 1999
- Student Evaluation of College Teaching Effectiveness: a brief reviewAssessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 1998
- Uses and misuses of student evaluations of teaching effectivenessInnovative Higher Education, 1995
- An Application of Expectancy Theory to Explain a Manager's Intention to Use a Decision Support SystemDecision Sciences, 1994
- Improving Teaching Using Systematic Differences in Student Course RatingsJournal of Education for Business, 1989
- The Relationship of Students' Attitudes about Effective Teaching to Students' Ratings of Effective TeachingEducational and Psychological Measurement, 1989
- Construct validity of measures of college teaching effectiveness.Journal of Educational Psychology, 1985
- Modeling effort decisions with behavioral decision theory: Toward an individual differences model of expectancy theoryOrganizational Behavior and Human Performance, 1981
- Consistency and variability among college students in rating their teachers and courses: A review and analysisResearch in Higher Education, 1977