This paper uses sentiment analysis to measure student satisfaction with college business courses and instructors. The objective is to identify factors that nurture student success and satisfaction in online business courses and to determine if they differ from the characteristics most valued in face-to-face environments. Partial least squares…

Student evaluations of teaching (SET) are an influential -- and often sole -- tool in higher education to determine course and teacher effectiveness. It is therefore problematic that SET results are disturbed by low response rates and response quality. An important factor discussed in prior research to increase SET effectiveness and students'…

Many documents are produced in evaluation processes; documentation of student evaluation can therefore be time-consuming. Nevertheless, we have little knowledge about how these documents are used. This paper is based upon analysis of documents that direct and report on internal student evaluation practice at a Norwegian university. Interviews with…

Reciprocity is a potential issue in college teaching if professors benefit students in return for better student evaluation results. The reciprocity in college teaching is framed as kind intention and consequence, including teaching styles, attendance requirement, delivery mode, grading and course difficulty. This study explored whether and to…

Student evaluations of courses and teaching (SETs) are used for various purposes, are omnipresent in academic teaching, and cause tensions within universities. Their analytical power is contested, and specific uses are problematised for negative effects on lecturers and academic relationships. This interpretive interview study addresses how…

This paper examines the volume and type of anonymous comments academics receive in student evaluations of courses and teaching (SETs) at the 16,000 higher education institutions that collect this data at the end of each teaching period. Existing research has increasingly pointed to the negative issues of student surveys, but very little research…

Student evaluations of teaching (SET) generate essential information for university administrators and faculty in assessing instruction quality. Lower response rates in student surveys have remained an important technical issue hurting the credibility of SET. This study examined the student response rate and its impact on the results of student…

This study compares student evaluations across face-to-face and online modalities, as well as qualitative versus quantitative courses, in a large sample of graduate-level courses from 2008 to 2023 at a US business school. The findings reveal significantly lower course and instructor evaluation ratings despite similar class performance in online…

Professors create a positive learning environment for students through their interpersonal behaviour style in the classroom. High quality interpersonal interactions are associated with a number of positive student outcomes such as increased motivation, effort, learning, satisfaction, and higher ratings on formal student evaluations of teaching…

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the relationship between student emotions, professors' performance and course ratings and difficulty. Design/methodology/approach: Natural language processing models are used to extract six basic emotions and several categories of professors' harmful performance from nearly one million student reviews…

Higher education institutions task their faculty with student learning and expect them to undergo an extensive faculty evaluation process. One component of the evaluation process is to gather data on faculty teaching effectiveness through student course evaluations. Universities use course evaluation data in conjunction with other gathered data to…

Course Evaluation Instruments (CEIs) are critical aspects of faculty assessment and evaluation across most higher education institutions, but heated debates surround the value and validity of such instruments. While some argue that CEI scores are valid measures of course and instructor quality, others argue that faculty members can game the…

This action research project sought to understand how giving students a choice in how to demonstrate mastery of a reading would affect both grades and evaluations of the instructor, given that assessment choice might increase student engagement. We examined the effect of student assessment choice on grades and course evaluations, the two…

Course evaluations can be an effective tool for students to appraise a course and instructor; however, they can also be a communicative space for students to write comments instructors perceive as hurtful, need to make sense of and reconcile with their instructional practice. Instructors turn to others to help make sense of and cope with comments.…

Mid-semester formative evaluations of college teaching are a promising, low-cost solution to providing online instructors with in-the-moment feedback to improve their online teaching practices. However, existing instruments suffer from issues of validity and bias, and fail to align with evidence-based strategies. This paper presented and…