scholarly journals Is the Italian student survey on teaching reliable? For what purposes?

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enrico Zaninotto
Keyword(s):  
Teaching Quality ◽  
Personal Interest ◽  
Student Survey ◽  
National Agency ◽  
Student Evaluations Of Teaching ◽  
Teaching Activities ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
Evaluation Of Teaching ◽  
Level Scale ◽  
Dimensions Of Teaching

Italian universities submit a compulsory survey to students for the evaluation of teaching activities. The questionnaire, designed by the Italian National Agency for University and Research System Evaluation (ANVUR), aims to evaluate four dimensions of teaching quality (course, instructor, personal interest and overall satisfaction) through twelve questions on a four-level scale. This paper addresses first the issue of the questionnaire’s reliability in the representation of the four evaluation dimensions. The main result is that the questionnaire do not represent properly the four dimensions of evaluation which it is intended for. Secondly, through a preliminary statistical analysis, it discusses the use of the survey for comparative purposes. A comparative analysis can be adversely affected by several contextual and subjective factors, like the size of the class and the gender of the instructor. The paper concludes by discussing the difficulty of finding proper conditioning, and raises doubts regarding an uncritical comparative use of student evaluations of teaching activities. 

scholarly journals Evaluating quality of the didactics at university: the opportunities offered by latent class modeling

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesca Bassi ◽  
Renata Clerici ◽  
Debora Aquario
Keyword(s):  
Latent Class ◽  
Teaching Quality ◽  
Measurement Scale ◽  
Validity And Reliability ◽  
Measurement Scales ◽  
National Agency ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Evaluation Of Teaching ◽  
The University

Purpose Students’ evaluation of teaching quality plays a major role in higher education. Satisfaction is not directly observable, nevertheless it can be measured through multi-item measurement scales. These instruments are extremely useful and their importance requires accurate development and validation procedures. The purpose of this paper is to show how latent class (LC) analysis can improve the procedures for developing and validating a multi-item measurement scale for measuring students’ evaluation of teaching and, at the same time, provide a deeper insight in the phenomenon under investigation. Design/methodology/approach The traditional literature highlights specific protocols along with the statistical instruments to be used for achieving this goal. However, these tools are suited for metric variables but they are adopted even when the nature of the observed variables is different, as it often occurs, since in many cases the items are ordinal. LC analysis takes explicitly into account the ordinal nature of the variables and also the fact that the object of interest is unobservable. Findings The data refer to the questionnaire to evaluate didactics to the students of the University of Padua. Within LC analysis allows an insight of scale properties, such as dimensionality, validity and reliability. Moreover, the results provide a deeper view in the way students use the scale to report satisfaction suggesting to revise the instrument according to the suggestion by the National Agency for University Evaluation. Originality/value The paper gives an original contribution on two sides. On the side of methods, it introduces a more accurate methodology for evaluating scales to measure the students’ satisfaction. On the side of applications, it provides important suggestions to the university management to improve the process of quality of the didactics evaluation.

Determinants of perceived teaching quality: The role of divergent interpretations of expectations

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pascal Wallisch ◽  
Julie Cachia
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Gender Discrimination ◽  
Statistical Power ◽  
Teaching Effectiveness ◽  
Teaching Quality ◽  
Perceived Quality ◽  
Student Evaluations Of Teaching ◽  
Evaluation Of Teaching ◽  
High Statistical Power

The evaluation of teaching effectiveness has received considerable academic attention. Yet, it remains controversial whether student evaluations of teaching reflect teaching quality or whether these ratings are dominated by factors unrelated to teaching effectiveness. Recently, an additional concern has been raised, namely that they are plagued by systemic biases such as gender discrimination. Here, we address both of these questions with high statistical power, by analyzing a comprehensive set of data from RateMyProfessors.com. We find that gender differences in perceived quality are minute, and that the overall ratings can be well predicted by specific instructor attributes. We conclude that student derived evaluations of teaching are largely unbiased and reflect instructor qualities. We account for our findings by positing the divergent interpretations of expectations (DIE) model.

Contradicting findings of gender bias in teaching evaluations: Evidence from two experiments in Denmark

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Skorkjær Binderkrantz ◽  
Mette Bisgaard ◽  
Berit Lassesen
Keyword(s):  
Gender Bias ◽  
Observational Studies ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Gender Effects ◽  
Performance Evaluations ◽  
Student Evaluations Of Teaching ◽  
Teaching Evaluations ◽  
Public Sector Employees ◽  
Evaluation Of Teaching

The role of gender in the interaction between citizens and public sector employees attracts increasing attention. Notably, gender effects have been described in performance evaluations across different contexts. With respect to student evaluations of teaching, a series of observational studies as well as experimental studies have found that women are evaluated lower than men. In this paper, we conduct two experiments in Denmark to test whether a similar gender bias is present in a national context that is generally considered among the most gender equal. Study 1 investigates differences in the evaluation of two similar presentations by teachers reported to be either male or female. Study 2 focuses on the evaluation of teaching material prepared by men and women respectively. The two studies arrive at similar conclusions: There is no gender bias in favor of men in the evaluations made by students. The paper discusses the implications of these findings.

Teaching Professionalism to the Teaching Profession

1981 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Macklin
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Philosophy Of Education ◽  
Teaching Profession ◽  
Fourth Dimension ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
Sociological Literature ◽  
Professional Development Of Teachers ◽  
Relational Concept ◽  
Dimensions Of Teaching ◽  
Effective Contribution

This paper proposes a concept of professionalism which (a) distinguishes the essentially professional elements of teaching and (b) establishes in what areas philosophy of education might make an effective contribution to the professional development of teachers. The paper commences with the sociological literature on the formal characteristics of a profession. Four dimensions of teaching are then proposed in order to specify its professional elements. The notion of relevance which underpins my argument is taken to be a relational concept dependent upon the perspective of the person making the relevancy judgment. The relevance of ‘philosophy of education as reflection’ to each of the professional dimensions of teaching is discussed, and an argument mounted for the desirability of reflection as professionally relevant to the fourth dimension of teaching.

scholarly journals Teaching Quality and Students' EFL Achievements in Ethiopia: Analysis From the Perspective of the Basic Dimensions of Teaching Quality

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 1131-1145
Author(s):  
Jean-Baptiste M.B. SANFO ◽  
Inoussa MALGOUBRI
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Classroom Management ◽  
Hierarchical Linear Modeling ◽  
Student Support ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Teaching Quality ◽  
Linear Modeling ◽  
Cognitive Activation ◽  
High Achieving Students ◽  
Dimensions Of Teaching

Teaching quality is important for students’ English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Achievements. The three basic dimensions of teaching quality (student support, classroom management, and cognitive activation) showed effectiveness in some subjects in developed countries, but there is very little investigation on its effectiveness in developing ones. Using hierarchical linear modeling and re-centered influence function regression, this study investigates the extent to which the three basic dimensions of teaching quality affect students’ EFL achievements and how much the effect varies across achievement distributions in the context of Ethiopia. Findings reveal that classroom management does not affect students’ EFL achievements and this is consistent across achievement distributions. However, cognitive activation positively affects students’ EFL learning achievements and the effect is consistent across the distribution of achievements. Similarly, student support affects students’ EFL achievements positively, but its effect is higher for high-achieving students. Implications of the findings were discussed.

scholarly journals Construction practice of student evaluation system based on JFinal + webix integrated framework and Baidu AI platform

2021 ◽  
Vol 336 ◽  
pp. 05016
Author(s):  
Zhan Gao ◽  
Zhihai Suo ◽  
Jun Liu ◽  
Mo Xu ◽  
Dandan Hong ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Evaluation System ◽  
Student Evaluation ◽  
Evaluation Model ◽  
Teaching Quality ◽  
Integration Framework ◽  
Online Student ◽  
Evaluation Of Teaching ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
Level Student ◽  
Construction Practice

Students' evaluation of teaching is a key link to realize teaching quality monitoring and promote teachers' teaching level. Based on the practice of student evaluation in our university, this paper constructs a multi-level student evaluation system, and develops an online student evaluation system by using JFinal+webix integration framework. The new Internet plus evaluation model is established to improve the efficiency of student evaluation and the enthusiasm of students to evaluate teaching. Meanwhile, based on the analysis of students' comments on teaching by Baidu AI platform, It provides data support for the improvement of learning level and the optimization of teaching evaluation.

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