Recently graduated university students from all Australian Universities rate their overall departmental and university experiences (DUEs), and their responses (N = 44,932, 41 institutions) are used by the government to benchmark departments and universities. We evaluate this DUE strategy of rating overall departments and universities rather than…

As emphasized in the call for papers by Jonna Kulikowich and Gregory Hancock, the primary goal of this special issue of "Contemporary Educational Psychology" is to assemble a collection of illustrative empirical studies in educational psychology that utilize one or more state-of-the-art latent variable modeling procedures. Distinguishing these…

In this investigation, we used a classic latent profile analysis (LPA), a person-centered approach, to identify groups of students who had similar profiles for multiple dimensions of academic self-concept (ASC) and related these LPA groups to a diverse set of correlates. Consistent with a priori predictions, we identified 5 LPA groups representing…

A multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) matrix was formed in which nine evaluation dimensions were the multiple traits, and different offerings of the same course were the multiple methods. Findings from the MTMM analysis and confirmatory factor analysis provide strong evidence for the multidimensionality of student ratings. (Author/BW)

To determine the relationship between 16 background variables and students' evaluations of instruction, a questionnaire was completed in 511 undergraduate courses at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Student variables, including grade point average, class size, expected grade, and prior subject interest, rarely explained 10% of…