Student perceptions of instructor availability outside of class are examined both as a predictor of instructor quality and as an outcome of student, instructor, and course characteristics. Data represent a 30-year case study record of course evaluations and instructor professional and personal variables. Student perceptions of instructor…

This study involved a sample group of students residing in residential halls at a state university in a qualitative and quantitative analysis to measure their perceptions of the university's faculty. Exploratory, then confirmatory, factor analysis revealed a 3-factor model representing teaching faculty: a negative, emotionally challenging…

This study aims to reveal the factors behind students' personal biases and preferences in the evaluation process in order to assess the value of using students' ratings of professors' teaching effectiveness. A questionnaire was completed by 330 students at Lebanese universities asking them to provide their feedback on 23 traits commonly regarded…

The authors of this article express concern about the use of parametric techniques to report faculty performance based on categorical Likert survey data gleaned from student responses to teaching evaluations. They argue that these surveys often violate primary statistical requirements for evaluative application. Therefore, the conclusions drawn…

The term "teaching excellence" is frequently used but difficult to define. In an effort to expand upon previous work to define teaching excellence, the authors analyzed 93 teaching award nomination letters of students and peer faculty from a large, land-grant university in the Mid-Atlantic United States. Content analysis identified 25…

This study compared student evaluations of teaching (SET) for limited-term lecturers (LTLs) and full-time faculty (FTF) using a Likert-scaled survey administered to students (N = 1,410) at the end of university courses. Data were analyzed using a general linear regression model to investigate the influence of multi-dimensional evaluation items on…

Surveys to evaluate instructor effectiveness are commonly used in higher education. Yet the survey items included are often drawn from other surveys without reference to a theory of adult learning. The authors present the results from a validation study of such a theory-based survey. They evidence that an evaluation survey based on a theory that…

The author looks at the meaning of specific terminology commonly used in student surveys: "effective teaching." The research seeks to determine if there is a difference in how "effective teaching" is defined by those taking student surveys and those interpreting the results. To investigate this difference, a sample group of professors and students…

The authors captured students' and instructors' views of teaching effectiveness at the postsecondary level in two ways: open-ended questions delivered online to 500 students and one-on-one interviews with 15 instructors. A grounded theory approach suggested that effective teaching involves good communication aimed at helping students understand…

A qualitative content analysis of student comments on RateMyProfessors.com (RMP) identified the characteristics of professors rated as "good," "average," and "poor." Comments contained instructor characteristics consistent with prior research on the qualities of effective and ineffective college teachers. To better understand how students might…

Service-learning is an instructional method that incorporates community service into the curriculum. The integration of service-learning into business pedagogy provides benefits that are particularly valuable to business students. Yet business educators have been slow to integrate service-learning into their classes. The authors explore the…

Student evaluation of instruction in college and university courses has been a routine and mandatory part of undergraduate and graduate education for some time. A major shortcoming of the process is that it relies exclusively on the opinions or qualitative judgments of students rather than on assessing the learning or transfer of knowledge that…

The authors investigated the effect of midterm student feedback on final ratings of college teaching and courses. Five classes including 142 students participated in pre- and posttests with the intervention of a midterm group feedback process known in the literature as Bare Bones Questions (or BBQ). Three of the four hypotheses tested were…

Students (n=222) who had graduated from Rollins College (Florida) 8 to 25 years earlier responded to a request for narratives concerning their most effective and most ineffective professors. Analysis suggested that ineffective professors shared three characteristics: lack of passion for their subject matter, inability to connect students to…

Research with 96 undergraduates investigated interpretations of a global-evaluation item common to student evaluation forms. Through narratives and semistructured interviews, students described classroom experiences, beliefs about good teaching, and aspects of the evaluation process that influencing their ratings. The item produced multiple…