Effect of teacher, student, and class characteristics on the evaluation of college instructors.

Investigated whether student evaluations of faculty would be affected by the characteristics of the teacher, the student, and the class. Each instructor at a single university was asked to answer questions indicating personal warmth, professorial rank, years of teaching experience, sex, and class size. Students in 174 classes were asked to complete the Instructional Improvement Questionnaire (IIQ). The 20 questions on the IIQ that directly evaluate instructor performance were analyzed. Only the results for the 1st set of canonical functions are presented. An instructor who received high scores on this canonical function would be rated as encouraging student participation in the course, showing an interest in students, knowing when students understood her or him, being available to students, increasing appreciation for the course, and accepting criticism and suggestions. The classes that received high values on this function were small in size, were taught by instructors who rated themselves as warm, and had students that expected high grades. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

College students' self-insight and common implicit theories in rating of teaching effectiveness.

The objectives of this study were to determine whether (a) students have self-insight into how they make overall evaluations of teaching effectiveness, and (b) there is a reasonably high level of consensus among the student raters in making overall evaluations. A policy-capturing approach was used with 3 different college student groups (94 introductory geology, 82 accounting, and 53 graduate education students) to determine the implicit and explicit weights of the teaching factors students used in arriving at their overall evaluations. The results indicated that the students had self-insight and a reasonably high level of consensus in making their overall evaluations, providing further evidence of the validity of students' overall evaluations of teaching effectiveness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Research activities of medical students in Germany using as an example the Würzburg University Clinic

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Many medical students in Germany take part in research at their university, as part of their work on a doctoral dissertation. There are alternatives to this model in other countries. To have a basis for comparison, the research activities of medical students at the University of Würzburg were analysed. METHOD: A questionnaire was sent to all members of the teaching staff of the medical faculty of the University Würzburg (n = 238). It contained 20 questions about the number of students whose research had been supervised, duration of the research, number of uncompleted research studies, cost of materials, resulting publications and estimate of value of the research done. Among those questioned were two groups of professors (50 and 66 respectively, 122 senior lecturers or titular professors). RESULTS: 106 faculty members answered the questionnaire sent to them (45%), 66 working clinically, 26 in a clinic-related institute and 14 in basic research. The students' research usually started in their 4th year and on average took up 216 full-time days. The average training period had lasted for 3 months, 10% of student broke off their research, and each faculty member supervised a mean of 4.5 students. Nonexperimental work (48.3%) cost on average DM 2300, experimental work (51.7%) DM 15,000. Generally two publications resulted and one or two posters/oral communications per student. Two-thirds of the faculty members thought that research undertaken by medical students was important for maintaining a qualitatively and quantitatively high publication level at a university clinic. CONCLUSION: Work on a doctoral dissertation not only promotes scientific thinking of the future doctor but also contributes towards maintaining scientific standards.     

Trends in staffing an academic department of surgery in a tropical hospital: past, present, and future?

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effect of staff mobility on student teaching, the training of young surgeons, and the volume of research in an academic department of surgery of a tropical teaching hospital. DESIGN: Retrospective study of academic staffing in the department of surgery of the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital between 1975 and 1993. SETTING: Zaria, Nigeria. SUBJECTS: 42 academic staff, 1190 medical students, and 110 registrars (trainee surgeons). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Number of academic staff in post, medical students, and registrars; number of research papers in latter years of the study. RESULTS: In 19 years, 42 academic staff worked for varying periods (1-15 years) in the university department of surgery in Zaria. These included six professors, 12 senior lecturers, and 24 lecturers. Although staff numbers diminished, numbers of students and registrars increased year by year. Average number of publications dropped from a peak of 14.4 to 7.4 a year. CONCLUSION: Staffing of the department has fallen steadily over the years and has adversely affected the department's primary responsibility of teaching students and training young surgeons.     

Student and department chairman views of the performance of university professors.

Compared evaluations of students for 713 university courses taught over 4 semesters by 347 professors to rankings made by department chairmen of their faculty. The faculty were ranked by professional visibility, current research, teaching impact, communication ability, and departmental contributions. 16 of 27 rhos computed for visibility and student evaluations of teaching were negative. A substantial number of relationships for research were around zero. Relationships for teaching and communications were moderately positive. One-year stability coefficients of rankings by chairmen were high for a single chairman but considerably lower when a change of chairman took place. In a chairman's view, research and visibility are highly related, but effective teaching is only moderately related to these performance criteria. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Lawyers with ADHD: The special test accommodation controversy.

As a psychologist, you may be asked to provide a university or professional licensing board with recommendations concerning special test accommodations for a student you diagnosed with a learning problem. In this article, the author discusses experience consulting with states administering the bar examination to law graduates diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder who requested test accommodations; this experience illustrates the controversies surrounding this issue. Psychologists' recommendations for test accommodations are too often based on incomplete evaluations with unclear rationale for their support. Test agencies lack research to support their concern that validity is altered when test accommodations are granted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Course evaluation: How?

255 undergraduates participated in a 2 * 2 * 2 factorial study designed to measure the effect of variables influencing teacher rating form (TRF) scores at the time of administration in university settings. The factors were the identity of the TRF sponsor (faculty association or student association), the attitude of the TRF sponsor toward student evaluations (favorable or unfavorable), and respondent anonymity (signed or unsigned). Overall, Ss rated their instructor more positively when they believed a faculty association was sponsoring the evaluation than when they were informed that it was sponsored by a student association. No effect was found for the favorable-unfavorable attitude of the TRF sponsor toward TRFs or the signed-unsigned conditions of responding. Users of TRFs in university settings are cautioned that situational factors may influence student evaluation of teaching effectiveness. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Teaching metaphors of student nurses

This research focused on exploring the metaphors nursing students use to express their experience of university teachers' practice. A social constructivist approach to meaning underlies the process of interpreting student language in this study. The following evolved as major research questions: What are the metaphors students use to describe teaching? How do these metaphors operate? The research concluded that: students readily use metaphors to describe their experiences of teaching within the nursing degree programme; there is a pattern to the choice of metaphors; some of these images function as incremental or constructive metaphors, extending understanding of what it means to teach; others support current understandings and reflect taken-for-granted notions of teaching. Specific metaphors used by students to describe teaching were contextually analysed. A number of them may offer teachers of nursing insight, into their craft. Metaphors such as teacher as umpire, teacher as student, teaching with distance and teaching the big picture may be useful images for teachers to think about to guide their practice.     

Automated teaching methods using linear programs.

186 freshman engineering students studied elementary probability by different teaching methods. Multiple choice teaching machines, free-response teaching machines in individual booths, free-response teaching machines in a classroom, programed textbooks requiring overt responses and providing correct answers, programed textbooks requiring no overt responses, "programed" lecturers, and standard lecturers were compared. No significant differences were observed between the performance of the students learning by any of the programed machine, programed textbook, or programed lecturer methods: all of the programed methods were significantly better than the standard lecturer. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Student and faculty perceptions of student needs and the services of a university counseling center: Differences that make a difference.

800 university students and 400 faculty members were telephoned and asked to estimate how common 14 areas of concern were in the student body and to indicate how likely they would be to refer students to the university counseling service for assistance with those same concerns. Analyses revealed significant differences between the 2 groups on 8 of the 14 items. The 2 groups also differed significantly in their reasons for referring students to counseling. Students were more likely to refer on the basis of a pragmatic need such as finances and career planning. Faculty would refer for personal–social issues. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On "Construct validity of measures of college teaching effectiveness."

In their recent study Howard, Conway, and Maxwell (1985) proffered evidence of the validity of student evaluations of teaching effectiveness, particularly the convergence of student and former-student ratings. The authors claimed that these two measures are "especially effective evaluation methods" (Howard et al., 1985, p. 187). In this article, I raise questions on conceptual and methodological grounds about the quality of the Howard et al. validation evidence. The main points of concern are whether (a) the Howard et al. evidence can support the hypothesis that their student evaluation measure is tapping a construct other than teaching effectiveness and (b) the convergent validation offered in their article more closely resembles reliability analysis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Teaching tomorrow's psychology students: Who pays the piper?

Pressures likely to influence the teaching of psychology in the 1980s include the declining number of 18-yr-old students, student interest in clinical psychology, the emergence of professional schools of psychology, the awarding of credit for life experience to midcareer adult students, and the tightening of the job market for doctoral students. The relevance of these pressures to the use of student evaluations of teaching, to the training of graduate students, and to the undergraduate curriculum is discussed. (6 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Student evaluations of college professors: Are female and male professors rated differently?

Over 1,000 male and female college students of 16 male and female professors (matched for course division, years of teaching, and tenure status) evaluated their instructors in terms of teaching effectiveness and sex-typed characteristics. Male students gave female professors significantly poorer ratings than they gave male professors on the six teaching evaluation measures; their ratings of female professors were poorer than those of female students on four of the six measures. Female students also evaluated female professors less favorably than male professors on three measures. Student perceptions of a professor's instrumental/active and expressive/nurturant traits, which were positively related to student ratings of teaching, accounted for only a few of these gender-related effects. Student major and student class standing also played a role in the evaluation of professors. The importance of gender variables in teacher evaluation studies is discussed, and implications for future research are noted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multilevel school consultation training: Preliminary program evaluation.

Recommends the acquisition of consultation skills for school psychologists but notes that this is a neglected area in the majority of training programs. To meet the need for training prototypes, a multilevel consultation training sequence with matched field experiences graduated by learning goals and previous skill development is proposed. Specifically, Level 1 of the consultation program and its matched field experience, consultation with student teachers, is evaluated as a viable means within a university setting by which novice consultants can practice diverse consultation skills. Evaluation data from 12 consultation students (doctoral candidates), student teachers, and student teaching supervisors support the effectiveness of the program for both consultants and consultees. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Low-inference classroom teaching behaviors and student ratings of college teaching effectiveness.

Six to 8 trained observers visited classes (3 classes/lecturer) taught by 54 university lecturers receiving either low, medium, or high student ratings. The observers, using the Teacher Behaviors Inventory, estimated the frequency of occurrence of 60 specific, low-inference teaching behaviors. Significant differences among low-, medium-, and high-rated Ss were found for 26 individual behaviors divided among 7 categories of teaching. Group differences were largest for attention-getting behaviors such as speaking expressively, moving about while lecturing, using humor, and showing enthusiasm for the subject. Factor analysis of individual teaching behaviors yielded 9 interpretable factors, of which three (Clarity, Enthusiasm, and Rapport) differed significantly across groups, and all but one showed correlations with various teacher and course characteristics. Results are discussed with reference to the pivotal role of attention-getting behavior in classroom teaching, the validity of student instructional ratings, and the design of teaching improvement programs in higher education. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Do university teachers become more effective with experience? A multilevel growth model of students' evaluations of teaching over 13 years.

Do university teachers, like good wine, improve with age? The purpose of this methodological/substantive study is to apply a multiple-level growth modeling approach to the long-term stability of students' evaluations of teaching effectiveness (SETs). For a diverse cohort of 195 teachers who were evaluated continuously over 13 years (6,024 classes, an average of 30.9 classes per teacher), there was little evidence that teachers became either more or less effective with added experience. This stability of SETs generalized reasonably well over undergraduate- and graduate-level courses, early career teachers, and teachers who differed substantially in terms of their teaching effectiveness overall. Whereas there were substantial individual differences between teachers in terms of their teaching effectiveness, these individual differences were also highly stable over time. Although highly supportive of the use of SETs for many purposes, the results provide a serious challenge for existing programs that assume that SET feedback alone is sufficient to improve teaching effectiveness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Students' evaluations of university teaching: Dimensionality, reliability, validity, potential baises, and utility.

Reviews findings and research designs used to study students' evaluations of teaching effectiveness. The focus of the investigation is on the author's own research that has led to the development of a students' evaluations of educational quality measure, but it also incorporates a wide range of other research. Based on this overview, class-average student ratings are (a) multidimensional; (b) reliable and stable; (c) primarily a function of the instructor who teaches a course rather than the course that is taught; (d) relatively valid against a variety of indicators of effective teaching; (e) relatively unaffected by a variety of variables hypothesized as potential biases; and (f) seen to be useful by faculty as feedback about their teaching, by students for use in course selection, and by administrators for use in personnel decisions. It is suggested that in future research a construct validation approach should be used in which it is recognized that effective teaching and students' evaluations designed to reflect it are multifaceted, that there is no single criterion of effective teaching, and that tentative interpretations of relations with validity criteria and with potential biases must be scrutinized in different context and examine multiple criteria of effective teaching. (136 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationships among aspects of student alienation and self concept.

This study investigated the relationships among previous experiences of student alienation and the various aspects of self concept. A total of 351 undergraduate students were administered the Student Alienation and Trauma Survey-Revised (SATS-R) and the Tennessee Self Concept Scale: Second Edition (TSCS:2). Students were asked to report on their worst experience in school, symptoms they had following this worst experience, and overall feelings about themselves. Results indicated a moderate negative correlation between self concept and student alienation. A stepwise multiple regression analysis indicated that among the subtests of the SATS-R, Hopelessness, and General Maladjustment scores best predicted poor student self concept. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comparison of professional versus student ratings of job interviewee behavior.

Designed a replication of research by T. McGovern and H. Tinsley (1978) which asked professional personnel representatives to rate a videotaped job interviewee. Nonprofessional undergraduates were used as the raters of job interviewee behavior. Content of the interviews was constant; nonverbal behavior was experimentally manipulated. The results obtained with the student raters closely parallel those of professionals. The student Ss were able to discriminate nonverbal behaviors such as eye contact, voice tone, and body movement in making their evaluations. The implications for future research with students as Ss and the development of peer counseling programs for job interview preparation are discussed. (9 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)