Researchers, assessment professionals, and faculty in higher education increasingly depend on survey data from students to make pivotal curricular and programmatic decisions. The surveys collecting these data often require students to judge frequency (e.g., how often), quantity (e.g., how much), or intensity (e.g., how strongly). The response…

The use of surveys, questionnaires, and rating scales to measure important outcomes in higher education is pervasive, but reliability and validity information is often based on problematic Classical Test Theory approaches. Rasch Analysis, based on Item Response Theory, provides a better alternative for examining the psychometric quality of rating…

This study pioneers a Rasch scoring approach and compares it to a conventional summative approach for measuring longitudinal gains in student learning. In this methodological note, our proposed methodology is demonstrated using an example of rating scales in a student survey as part of a higher education outcome assessment. Such assessments have…

We developed a criterion-referenced student rating of instruction (SRI) to facilitate formative assessment of teaching. It involves four dimensions of teaching quality that are grounded in current instructional design principles: Organization and structure, Assessment and feedback, Personal interactions, and Academic rigor. Using item response…

Which U.S. institutions of higher education offer the best value to consumers? To answer this question, we evaluate U.S. institutions relative to a data envelopment analysis (DEA) multi-factor frontier based on 2000-2001 data for 1,179 4-year institutions. The resulting DEA "best buy" scores allow the ranking of institutions by a…

Previous research suggests that it is the department, not the graduate school that bears the greatest responsibility for doctoral students' progress and success (Ehrenberg et al., Doctoral education and the faculty of the future (pp. 15-34). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, "2009") dictating the need to examine and understand how doctoral…

This study applies a data envelopment analysis model developed for national universities to 93 national liberal arts colleges. Such models can be used by individual institutions for benchmarking purposes or by researchers seeking to compare the practices of highly efficient liberal arts colleges with the practices of relatively inefficient…

Higher education administrators believe that revenues are linked to college rankings and act accordingly, particularly those at research universities. Although rankings are clearly influential for many schools and colleges, this fundamental assumption has yet to be tested empirically. Drawing on data from multiple resource providers in higher…

A study attempted to clarify and extend the Biglan model, which uses faculty and departmental characteristics to classify intellectual disciplines, by applying it to previously unclassified disciplines. The model is found to be valid and useful for studying academic diversity in the higher education system based on current faculty data. (MSE)

Students' expectations (obtained on the first day) and the violation of these expectations are two possible factors that affect course evaluations. Their effects on students' final interest and future intentions are compared with students' actual reports of the class given at the end of the semester. (Author/MLW)

Reports an exploratory study designed to describe the development of the scales, investigate concerns regarding student perceptions of a large university, and examine in a standard research situation the viability of a new method of multidimensional analysis (order analysis, proposed as an inferential alternative to factor analysis). (JT)

The importance of teacher behaviors questionnaire (ITB) was constructed to measure students' perceptions of the importance of selected teacher behaviors. Data from 105 college students indicated that there were significant differences in perceived importance and that ratings tended to vary across sex groups. (Editor/LBH)

Students rated the quality of the items on a classroom test taken previously and psychometric items were calculated. Results showed that student ratings were related to item difficulty and that better students rated items as less ambiguous. Ambiguity ratings were more highly related to the item-test correlations for better students. (Author/LBH)

In this study of 460 SIU-C students, five topics related to academic excellence are explored. The results are discussed within a political model of the academic system, treating the university as a political system and students as quasi-citizens who possess a rudimentary academic belief system. (Author/LBH)

Data were collected on 799 students at the University of Florida, and relationships were analyzed using the Pearson product-moment correlation technique. Significant relationships were not found between student ratings and student achievement. (Author/LBH)