Student Perceptions of High Course Workloads are Not Associated with Poor Student Evaluations of Instructor Performance |
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| Authors: | Kay C. Dee |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Applied Biology and Biomedical Engineering Rose‐Hulman Institute of Technology;2. Dr. Kay C Dee is an associate professor of Applied Biology and Biomedical Engineering at Rose‐Hulman Institute of Technology. She writes papers and gives workshops and presentations on topics such as student learning styles, evaluations of teaching, assessment and accreditation, and helping faculty be effective in the classroom. Her biomedical engineering research focuses on tissue engineering and biomaterials. Her teaching, educational research, and mentoring of students and faculty have been recognized with a Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching “Professor of the Year” award for the state of Louisiana;3. a Tulane University “Inspirational Undergraduate Professor” award;4. the opportunity to serve as a Teaching Fellow for a National Effective Teaching Institute;5. a Graduate Alliance for Education in Louisiana “Award for Excellence in Mentoring Minority Researchers,” and more. |
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| Abstract: | Many engineering faculty believe that when students perceive a course to have a high workload, students will rate the course and the performance of the course instructor poorly. This belief can be particularly worrying to engineering faculty since engineering courses are often perceived as uniquely demanding. The present investigation demonstrated that student ratings of workload and of overall instructor performance in engineering courses were not correlated (e.g., Spearman's rho = 0.068) in data sets from either of two institutions. In contrast, a number of evaluation items were strongly correlated (Spearman's rho = 0.7 to 0.899) with ratings of overall instructor performance across engineering, mathematics and science, and humanities courses. The results of the present study provide motivation for faculty seeking to improve their teaching and course evaluations to focus on teaching methods, organization/preparation, and interactions with students, rather than course workload. |
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| Keywords: | student evaluations student workload teaching evaluations |
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