http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
development and evaluation of a new approach to student ratings of teaching
Although teaching has always been one of the stated purposes of universities, it has often times not been a top priority. Recently, however, it has become more important to many institutions of higher education. One element necessary for teaching to become even more important is a more precise method for measuring teaching effectiveness. Such measures would provide administrators with the information they need to reward teaching. In addition, these methods would provide the information instructors need to improve their teaching. Thus, teaching could become a more important focus for instructors as well as administrators. This project tested a method for measuring teaching performance that was expected to be more precise than existing technologies. This method was originally developed to measure and enhance productivity, but appeared to hold great promise for the measurement of teaching effectiveness. This method, developed by Pritchard and his students (Pritchard, 1990; Pritchard, Jones, Roth, Stuebing & Ekeberg, 1988, 1989) had been utilized in a variety of settings, but never in an educational institution. The research questions addressed by this project included the following: a) Could the system be developed in this setting? b) Was the resulting system valid? c) Was the resulting system cost effective? d) What factors were related to faculty satisfaction with the system? and e) What factors were related to improvements in teaching performance? Evidence suggested that the system could be developed in an academic setting, and that the resulting system was valid and cost effective. In addition, results indicated that individuals who saw the system as valid, and who had participated in the development of the system were more likely to be satisfied with the system. Finally, changes in teaching effectiveness scores were unrelated to any of the hypothesized variables. These results as well as areas for future research are discussed.