Student-Faculty Evaluation: What Place in Academe?
Abstract
Questions regarding the usefulness of the Naval Postgraduate School's Student Opinion form (SOF) as a device to measure teaching effectiveness have prompted this research. The possibility that the SOF may weigh heavily in pay, promotion, and tenure decisions is cause for research into its validity and reliability as an evaluation instrument. The first of three separate studies described here consists of an analysis of a questionnaire distributed to all teaching professors in the NPS Administrative Sciences Department. The second study concerns a questionnaire completed by 258 Administrative Sciences students, and the third study considers the responses of 560 students to four supplementary items added to the SOF. The results indicate that neither students nor faculty members feel strongly that SOF's actually measure or improve teaching effectiveness, that a large part of the variation in SOF ratings is attributable to factors other than a professor's teaching quality and, finally, that a student's anticipated course grade or cumulative grade point average has little correlation with the SOF ratings given the professor. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 1984
- Accession Number
- ADA144292
Entities
People
- C. A. White
- V. G. Melidosian
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School