The dimensions of students' perceptions of teaching effectiveness

The use of student ratings of instructional quality is enhanced by an under standing of the nature of the underlying dimensions. In the current investi gation, confirmatory factor analysis procedures were used to assess the fit of the original solution for the Student's Perceptions of Teaching Effecti veness questionnaire to a more recent sample of more than 7,000 university classes. Furthermore, a new exploratory factor analysis was used to examine the factor pattern after excluding certain items. The latter solution was cross-validated on an additional sample. The analyses provided a clear inte rpretation of six first-order and two second-order dimensions of instructio nal quality that are useful across a broad range of university courses. The dimensions of teaching quality obtained by researchers are examined and co mpared to the results of the current study. Implications for the evaluation of perceived teaching quality are discussed.