Thirty-one studies in which students and faculty specified the instructional characteristics they considered particularly important to good teaching and effective instruction were analyzed for commonalities. Results were compared with those of an earlier study of student ratings. (Author/MSE)

Extant research was explored for factors that might mediate either positive or inverse associations between research productivity and teaching effectiveness and those that possibly could be common causes of them. Pedagogical practices and dispositions of faculty members, as well as certain course or class characteristics were examined. (Author/MLW)

The instructor's preparation and organization, clarity and understandableness, stimulation of interest, motivation of students to reach high standards, encouragement of discussion and openness to others' opinions, and elocutionary skills consistently explain 10 percent or more of the variance in student achievement regardless of the method of…

Research and theory suggest that college students' motivation to learn is related to their epistemological beliefs. Faculty can promote student motivation by designing learning activities that facilitate student development of more sophisticated epistemological beliefs. Faculty developers can assist in this by giving special attention to the…

College teachers' personality traits were grouped into 14 clusters of traits. Only 4 of 14 trait clusters showed statistically significant average correlations between the teacher's personality traits and students' overall evaluations. Studies measuring traits by the perception of the teacher's students or colleagues found statistically…

Identifies eight characteristics of college culture that are supportive of teaching, and shows the importance of readily available feedback from different sources (colleagues, consultants, chairs, students, self). Such feedback helps address the need for self-determination and excellence in teaching, provides opportunities for faculty learning and…

Research on use of student evaluations of faculty as a source of information on good teaching is reviewed, and the differential importance of criteria expressed in the rating forms is discussed. It is concluded that while the data in the evaluations can have varied interpretations, they can also be an important source of information for…

Degree of profile similarity across specific evaluations was determined for studies comparing teachers' self-ratings with current student ratings, as were the relative and absolute similarity (or dissimilarity) for certain of the specific instructional dimensions. Implications were explored in terms of individual and subgroup differences.…