Suchergebnisse

A case is made for using the technique of evaluability assessment to introduce students to the field of evaluation. Procedures for directing, instructing, and supervising evaluability assessments in the classroom setting are described, along with techniques for adapting the method to the students' level of training, mix of experiences, and duration of the class. Evaluability assessment is a useful exercise that assists students in applying their research skills to real program needs. Twenty local evaluability assessments, course evaluations, and subsequent contact indicate that this approach is beneficial for student professional development and is a useful service for program stakeholders.

A newly constructed attitude questionnaire was distributed to 1,504 students in 76 classes in conjunction with a regular instructor evaluation form to determine if the attitude of the professor, as perceived by the student, plays a significant role in the performance rating of professors. It was found to do so, and 10 Commandments are presented to improve a professor's attitude. Four significant factors (Attitude, Presentation Skills, Reliability, and Learning Skills) were identified that are correlated with overall teaching effectiveness.

Abstract
Using data from an Italian University, we relate student evaluations of teaching quality to the physical attractiveness of instructors (as evaluated by external raters using photos), controlling for a number of teacher and course characteristics. We first show that teachers' beauty significantly affects evaluations of their teaching. We carry out a number of checks to tackle threats to internal validity: course fixed effects and individual research productivity are controlled for; an IV estimation strategy is undertaken using a second measure of beauty as an instrument; and measures of grooming and fastidiousness are introduced. Notwithstanding these controls, we find that more attractive teachers receive much better evaluations.

ABSTRACTEvaluations of teaching effectiveness rely heavily on student evaluations of teaching. However, an accumulating body of evidence shows that these evaluations are subject to gender bias. Theories of leadership and role incongruity suggest that this bias should be especially prominent in large courses. This article examines publicly available data from two large political science departments and finds that female instructors receive substantively and significantly lower ratings than male instructors in large courses. The author discusses the implications of apparent gender bias in teaching evaluations for the professional success of female faculty. Findings of gender bias in evaluations in other fields also hold in political science and are particularly problematic in the evaluation of large courses.

University teachers and students are evaluated regularly on their performance, and when evaluations are lower than expected, the feedback may be threatening to the individual, potentially causing deviant behaviors including un-collegiality and poor performance. In this paper, we use the self-threat model of procedural justice to examine faculty responses to teaching evaluations (Study 1) and student responses to course grades (Study 2). The model proposes that group identification influences self-serving bias and self-threat, which then influences procedural justice, and helps explain why teachers and students sometimes criticize decision procedures considered fair by socially accepted standards. Results show full support of the model for faculty responses to evaluations and partial support for student responses to grades. Group identification mitigated self-threat and self-serving bias for the faculty sample but had no influence on the student sample. These findings overall suggest that it is important to reduce the level of self-threat to make negative feedback less threatening to both teachers and students. This may be done either directly via fostering group identification or indirectly by making sure that sensitive performance-based information is not shared to the public.