DETERMINANTS OF TEACHING QUALITY - WHATS IMPORTANT TO STUDENTS

A method for using student evaluations to help faculty improve their t eaching performance is presented. A survey of current methods of stude nt evaluations of teaching identified a need to improve the statistica l information obtained from these evaluations. An ordinary least squar es framework is used to identify the factors that students feel are im portant in teacher and course ratings. This framework is used to estim ate weights that students assign to various teacher and course attribu tes and to test whether students apply these weights consistently acro ss teachers and courses. About 81 percent of the explained variation i n teacher ratings was associated with attributes that contribute to st udent enjoyment of the learning process. Over 90 percent of the explai ned variation in course ratings was associated with attributes that me asure how much a student learned in the course. Students were found to apply these attributes or weights consistently across teachers and co urses. Implications for developing effective teaching strategies, facu lty recruitment, and curriculum reform are discussed.