For student rating data to be useful in improving college teaching, consultants and faculty need to know how different evaluative purposes effect evaluation results, and they must be able to interpret and use the data at hand. A series of steps should be followed to help ensure valid data interpretation. (MSE)

Observation of 401 college teachers indicates that teachers of different academic disciplines (arts/humanities, social sciences, natural sciences/mathematics) differ in the frequency of specific classroom teaching behaviors, but that what makes an effective teacher, in the perception of students, is consistent regardless of discipline.…

A study investigated whether Biglan clusters of academic disciplines (hard/soft, pure/applied, life/nonlife) could be used to explain disciplinary differences in college student ratings of instruction. It was found that Biglan clusters do not explain the differences, many disciplines still emphasize knowledge acquisition over higher-order skills,…

Instructional improvement programs are most likely to be effective if, in addition to providing feedback to instructors, there is a system of institutional support, reward, and training. The instructor must be educated in how to conceptualize, interpret, and apply feedback information. (Author/MLW)

College teaching effectiveness, as perceived by students, can be predicted from specific, observable classroom behaviors of the instructor and can be improved through feedback and training procedures designed to modify these behaviors. (Author/MSE)

In a study using student rating data from over 8,000 course sections in a large university, disciplinary differences and the value students placed on the time they spent preparing for class are correlated with students' evaluations of teaching. Implications for faculty promotion and tenure policy, instructional improvement, and further research…

Formative evaluation of teaching is discussed, and ways of obtaining diagnostic feedback that will lead to improved teaching in large lecture classes are examined. A Teacher Behaviors Inventory is included. (MLW)

Research that provides a detailed analysis of college instructor expressiveness indicates that it influences student achievement and perceptions of teacher control in the classroom, but not for all students or in all classrooms. This body of research can contribute to development of models for classroom instruction. (MSE)