The practice of completing a student evaluation of a professor's teaching effectiveness is a common experience among college students. Research of this practice can be found as early as the beginning part of last century. In recent years, a variety of web-based non-university approved tools are being utilized by students to communicate with their…

The end-of-semester routine for collecting student evaluations of teaching is nearly ubiquitous among colleges and university in the United States. Ideally, student feedback is then used to improve instruction, advance curriculum, and facilitate student success. While well intentioned, student evaluations of teaching often fall short of measuring…

College students use online sources to obtain information about their institution's professors when preparing their schedules for the upcoming semester. While there is some disagreement among educators as to the validity of these student evaluations, students appear to find them to be quite useful. Might these evaluations, however, prove to be…

USA Today headlined an article "Study: Nearly Half are Overqualified for Their Jobs," (Marklein, 2013). The article cited a study by the nonprofit Center for College Affordability and Productivity which found this apparent mismatch between qualifications and jobs held. The question then becomes, what has led to this mismatch? Three…

Most higher education institutions have a policy regarding instructor evaluation and students play a dominant role in evaluation of classroom instruction. A standardized course/instructor evaluation form was used to understand the relationship of item responses on the student evaluation form, to the overall instructor score given by students…

The present study examined whether students used qualitative information, quantitative information, or both when making course selection decisions. Participants reviewed information on four hypothetical courses in an advising context before indicating their likelihood to enroll in those courses and ranking them according to preference. Modeled…

This paper explores the association between faculty and department size at the Ariel University Center, and assessment scores granted by students to members of the administrative and teaching staff. The main research question relates to any link between unit size and assessment scores. Furthermore, this study seeks an answer to the question of…

This study investigated the effect that varying degrees of faculty self-promotion had on 322 student evaluations. As high student evaluations are correlated with greater student learning, it is imperative that we assess how faculty's presentation style is perceived by students so as to enhance instruction and therefore student learning. Students…

What professors do, how they behave, and how they look arguably can be as significant as, if not more important than, the content discussed in the classroom. There is little disagreement that attire has communicative power, and the topic has been the subject of research for years due to its cultural and social significance. While the debate…

While student evaluation of teaching (SET) has become a common practice on most college campuses, research suggests that weaknesses exist in many of the common instruments employed for this assessment. This study lays the groundwork for the development of an improved psychometrically sound measure of teaching proficiency that can be used in a…

The study investigated the Delta State University, Abraka, Students' concept of the "effective teacher". A sample of 200 second year university students selected from four faculties were asked to select three most important characteristics of a good teacher from a list of ten. The data obtained were analysed using the percentage…

This study is an empirical examination of possible differences between female and male college seniors' perceptions between male and female college professors. Subjects were presented with three variations of a scale designed to measure students' perceptions of university professors in general, female professors, and male professors. These…

Previous research on instruction in higher education suggests that students' personal biases strongly influence their perceptions of professor/instructor effectiveness. However, there is disagreement about the degree and direction of this influence. The present article seeks to contribute to this often conflicting body of work. The researcher…

The purpose of this study was to describe student ratings of teaching effectiveness for faculty in the College of Education (COE) at a Research I institution in the Southern United States. Student ratings of teaching effectiveness were analyzed for the 190 tenure-track faculty in this study based on race (White, Black, and "Other" racial groups…

The massification of higher education is changing the cultural context of the institutes partaking in the system. It is now widely recognized that effective communication is a crucial pre-requisite to the achievement of teaching and learning outcomes in higher education. Effective communication strategies in the classroom are essential, and…