Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=vjeb20
Journal of Education for Business
ISSN: 0883-2323 (Print) 1940-3356 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjeb20
How Important Are Items on a Student Evaluation?
A Study of Item Salience
Stacey Barlow Hills , Natali Naegle & Kenneth R. Bartkus
To cite this article: Stacey Barlow Hills , Natali Naegle & Kenneth R. Bartkus (2009) How Important Are Items on a Student Evaluation? A Study of Item Salience, Journal of Education for Business, 84:5, 297-303, DOI: 10.3200/JOEB.84.5.297-303
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/JOEB.84.5.297-303
Published online: 07 Aug 2010.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 39
View related articles
tudent evaluations of teaching (SETs) are used often to gauge perceptions of a classroom experience andserveasaproxyforoverallteaching effectiveness.Despitethecommonalityof theiruse,therearelongstandingconcerns overtheirvalidityandmeaning.Itisinter-esting that the salience of the evaluation itemstostudentshasnotbeenexamined. Atpresent,mostresearchersassumethat theitemslistedareofequalimportancein theevaluationprocess.Althoughstudent input may have been sought during the construction of the SET, most universi-tiesdonotprovideongoingassessmentof those items. Researchers do not know if whattheyareaskingstudentstoevaluate hasanyrelativeimportancetothemwhen assessingtheircourseorinstructor.
Therefore,thepurposeofthepresent study was to examine students’ degree of salience with regard to the typical courseevaluation.Specifically,wecon-sideredthefollowingquestions:
1.How salient are course evaluation items to students in the evaluation process?
2.Are salience measures equal for all itemsonacourseevaluation?
3.Doesitemsaliencevarywithstudent characteristics?
Understanding salience would pro-videseveralbenefitsintheevaluation process.First,itwouldallowstudents to provide more accurate feedback
concerning a course or instructor. Second, instructors would be able to better judge where to make improve-ments. Third, it would allow for a richer understanding of what takes place in the classroom and may even allow for more accurate comparisons amonginstructorsanddisciplines.
IssuesinStudentEvaluations ofTeaching
Universitiesandcolleges(anddepart- ments within them) often useSETs as a measure of teaching effectiveness. Despite their frequent use of SETs, numerous studies have questioned whethertheyareanaccuratereflection ofhowwellacourseistaughtorwhat studentslearn(Aigner&Thum,1986; Wallace & Wallace, 1998; Whitworth, Price, & Randall, 2002; Yunker & Yunker, 2003). Findings included the following: (a) What students expect from an instructor and course are not always reflected in evaluations (Chonko, Tanner, & Davis, 2002); (b) SETs reinforce desired behavior rather than measure true effectiveness (Stratton, Myers, & King, 1994); and (c) evaluations may be affected by a wide range of traits, including student motivation to engage in the evaluation process (Chen, Gupta, & Howshower, 2004; Patrick, Hisley, & Kempler, 2000), the level of student experience
HowImportantAreItemsonaStudent
Evaluation?AStudyofItemSalience
STACEYBARLOWHILLS NATALINAEGLE
KENNETHR.BARTKUS UTAHSTATEUNIVERSITY LOGAN,UTAH
S
ABSTRACT. Althoughstudentevalu-ationsofteaching(SETs)havebeenthe subjectofnumerousresearchstudies,the salienceofSETitemstostudentshasnot beenexamined.Inthepresentstudy,the authorssurveyed484studentsfromalarge publicuniversity.Theauthorssuggestthat notallitemsareviewedequallyandthat measuresofitemsaliencecandifferon thebasisofstudentcharacteristicssuchas gender,classyear,andmajor.Theauthors provideadiscussionofthesefindingsand recommendations.
Keywords:itemsalience,studentevalua-tions,studentperceptions
Copyright©2009HeldrefPublications
with the evaluation process (Wallace &Wallace),andstudentdemographics such as major, gender, and graduate or undergraduate status (Lammers, Kiesler, Curren, Cours, & Connett, 2005;Ulrich,2005;Whitworthetal.)
Research based on the evaluation of written comments from students also indicates some variation in the relative salience of evaluation items to the classroom experience. For example, Boex (2000) found organization and clarity to be most important, whereas Chonko et al. (2002) noted that being interesting and helpful were key. Clayson and Haley (1990) found that the instructor’s personality was twice as strong of a predictor of evaluation scores as that of any other course metric, whereas Foote, Harmon, and Mayo(2003)notedthatstudentsapply evaluationcriteriadifferentlydepending on the instructor’s style. This suggests thatitisnotonlythecoursetraitsthat are important, but also the instructor traits, and that the relative importance oftheitemsmaybeofissue.
SalienceandtheEvaluation Process
The effectiveness of an evaluation assumesthat(a)theitemsorbehaviors selected for consideration are the best indicators of attitude and (b) the items are equally important to the evaluation process(Holbrook&Hulbert,1975).It isinterestingthatmanystudiesassume equal salience among the evaluation items. Despite evidence that students and instructors view evaluations dif-ferently, the importance that students place on these evaluation items has been given only limited consideration (Chonko et al., 2002; Sojka, Gupta, & Deeter-Schmelz,2002).
Althoughmanyresearchersaskedstu- dentstoidentifytraitsthatwereimpor-tant, their relative weightings have not beenaddressed.Todate,wecouldonly locateonestudythatspecificallyexam-ined relative importance of course or instructor traits. However, to test their ideas, Divoky and Rothermel (1988) developed and tested new scales rath-er than using existing, more standard course evaluations. Other researchers, such as Chonko et al. (2002), inferred
relative importance through the most frequently cited responses to open- endedquestions.Giventherelativepau-city of information on the salience of items, it would seem that additional researchisneeded.
METHOD
StudyContextandSample Selection
Thesampleforthepresentstudycom-prised students attending a large public researchuniversityinthewesternregion oftheUnitedStates.Businessinstructors with medium sections (30–80 students) of three specific business courses pro-videdaccesstostudentsincludingthose in(a)a3,000-levelbusinesscommunica-tionscourse,(b)a3,000-levelprinciples of marketing course, and (c) a 4,000-level market research course. Courses wereselectedtorepresentvariouspoints in the students’ educational experiences andtominimizeoverlapofstudents.In addition,weusedalarge(200+)section of a cross-disciplinary, 1,000-level gen- eraleducationcoursetoaccessnonbusi-nessandundeclaredmajors.
MeasureDevelopment andPretesting
Questionnaire items were drawn directlyfromtheuniversity’sSET.We slightlyadapteditemsforgrammatical correctnessandtoimprovereadability. Oneitemfromtheevaluationwassep- aratedintotwotoeliminatethepoten-tial for double-barrel bias. The order of the evaluation items was retained, as was the division of the items into courseandinstructortraits.Wedidthis to minimize variance from the actual evaluation and to provide some mea-sureoffamiliaritytothestudents.The instrumentwasreviewedbythreebusi-ness instructors and four students for readability, the usefulness of instruc-tions, integrity of item meaning, and time-to-completion.
DataCollectionandAnalysis We collected data in person through apencil-and-paperquestionnaire.Nomi-nal extra credit points were offered at the discretion of the individual faculty
member. Those professors who pro-vided extra credit for participation col-lected participant names separately as students submitted their questionnaires tous.Studentselectingnottoparticipate returned blank questionnaires. Though individual students could not be recog-nized, we used class codes to identify thosequestionnairesbelongingtoapar-ticularinstructorandcourseorsection.
We received 484 questionnaires, of which481wereusableintheanalysis. Sample demographics are provided in Table1.WeanalyzeddatausingSPSS (Version15.0).Analysisincludedtests of mean difference, correlation, and cross-tabulation.
RESULTS
Because SETs typically separate coursetraitsfrominstructortraits,we performed a varimax-rotated factor analysistoconfirmthatthetwo-factor structure used in the survey instru-ment was accurate. It was interesting thattheanalysisindicatedathree-fac-tor solution rather than a two-facthattheanalysisindicatedathree-fac-tor solution. Although course traits and instructor traits were still present as clearly defined factors, three items loaded onto a distinct third factor, classparticipation.
Although some cross-loading was indicated for the instructor-enthusiasm item, this is likely because of item-wordingsimilarity.Whenexaminedon the instructor and course trait factors separately,thisitemclearlyloadedonto onlytheinstructortraitfactor.Thus,the instructor-enthusiasmitemwasretained as part of the instructor factor. Cron-bach’s alpha reliability test for each of thefactorswasfoundtobegreaterthan .70, the level Nunnally (1978) recom-mended for existing scales. The factor structureandcorrespondingreliabilities arepresentedinTable2.
We calculated descriptive statistics, resultinginthemeanimportancescores listedinTable3.Meansarebasedona 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from
to the evaluation process, as all mean scoresweregreaterthanthescalemid-point of 4.0.Although there appear to be no statistical differences among the means at a marginal level (i.e., items ranked 5 compared with items ranked 6), the ordering from the most to least important does suggest some relative difference in the importance of items to the evaluation process. Fairness in gradingwasfoundtobemostimportant totheprocess,afindingconsistentwith previous qualitative evaluation studies. It should also be noted that grading fairness is statistically more important than the means of items ranked from 10to19.
Fairnessingradingwasfollowedby aseriesofinstructortraits:preparation, helpfulness, and use of in-class time. Hence, it appears that students place greaterimportanceonthein-classexpe- riencethanontheoutside-of-classexpe-rience (i.e., the importance of text or readings and outside assignments were fairly low). In this sense, the in-class experiencefocusesonwhatthefaculty member delivers to them. Conversely, student participation and interaction throughaskingquestions,makingcom-ments, or voicing opinions ranked at thebottomoftheevaluationitems.This seems to reflect a much lower student interestinreciprocatingcommunication backtotheinstructor.
To determine whether these rela-tive importance rankings would hold acrosssubgroupsofthestudentpopu-lation, we created cohorts across four variables: gender, class year, GPA, and college major (business, nonbusi-ness,unreportedornoneavailable).We chose these characteristics from exist-ingresearchonstudentevaluationsand college-studentdevelopment.
DifferencesbyGender
Weconsidereddifferencesbygender first. Women displayed a wider range of scores, with a total difference of .97betweenitemsrankedfrom1to19 (compared with a total difference for menof.82).Inallbuttwocases(clear courseobjectivesandtheabilitytocom-ment in class), women indicated the items generally to be of higher impor-tancethandidtheirmalepeers.
Ofthese,sixdifferenceswerefoundto be significant at the .05 level or greater, including relevance of exams, fairness in grading, organized class, instructor preparation, instructor helpfulness, and
availability of extra help (see Table 4). This suggests that female students place greatervalueontheinstructor’srolewhen makingtheirevaluationsandhaveagreat-erexpectationforastructuredclass.
TABLE1.SampleDemographics(N=481)
Samplecharacteristic Numberofstudents %
Gender
Male 279 58.0
Female 202 42.0 Classyear
Freshman 197 41.0 Sophomore 96 20.0 Junior 112 23.0
Senior 73 15.0
Unreportedornoneavailable 3 0.6 GPA
3.80andhigher 68 14.0 3.40–3.79 173 36.0 3.00–3.39 125 26.0 2.00–2.99 58 12.0 Below2.00 4 1.0 Unreportedornoneavailable 53 11.0 Collegemajor
Business 178 37.0 Nonbusiness 216 45.0 Unreportedornoneavailable 87 18.0
TABLE2.FactorStructureandReliabilities
Item Factorloading
Coursetraits
Courseobjectivesareclear. .579 Assignmentsarerelevant. .736 Materialpresentedinclassisrelevant. .728 Workloadisappropriatetoachievingcoursegoals. .674 Examsarerelevanttoachievingcoursegoals. .677 Coursegradingproceduresarefair. .732 Courseresponsibilitiesareclear. .682 Textorreadingsarehelpfultoachievingcoursegoals. .590 Instructortraits
Classisorganized. .737 Instructorgiveshelpfulexplanations. .802 Instructorusesappropriateexamples. .765 Instructorusesclasstimetohelpthestudents
learnsubjectmatter. .646 Instructorisenthusiasticaboutthesubject. .612 Instructorishelpfulinresolvingstudentquestions. .733 Instructorisprepared. .729 Extrahelpisavailablewhenneeded. .653 Classparticipation
Thereisanopportunitytoaskquestionsinclass. .893 Thereisanopportunitytomakecommentsinclass. .954 Thereisanopportunitytoexpressopinionsinclass. .930
Note.Forcoursetraits,λ=3.666,α=.815;forinstructortraits,λ=4.057,α=.856;forclass participation,λ=2.572,α=.916.
DifferencesbyClassYear
In comparing relative means by the fourclassyears,wenotedthesimilarity and dissimilarity between freshman and sophomore students and between juniorandseniorstudents,respectively
(seeTable5).Forexample,fourofthe five items were ranked similarly by juniors and seniors, and the top three items for both class years were the same:fairnessingrading,relevanceof in-class materials, use of class time, andhelpfulexplanations.
The differences between freshmen andsophomoreandbetweenjuniorand senior rankings suggest differences in howstudentsevaluateacourseasthey progressthroughtheireducationalexpe-riences. To examine this statistically, we collapsed the class levels into two cohort groups: underclassmen (fresh-manorsophomore)andupperclassmen (juniororsenior).Wetestedequalityof means for all 19 evaluation items and found 9 statistically significant differ-ences(seeTable6).
Therankorderingsuggeststhatthe nature of the course may contribute to class year differences. For exam-ple,thatupperclassmenplacegreater value on the ability to comment and voice opinions in class may reflect themoreparticipativenatureofupper division courses, which tend to be smallerandofmorespecializedcon-tent. Similarly, the importance that underclassmenplaceonrelevancyof materialsandexams,appropriateness of workload, and grading fairness may reflect the nature of large lec-ture-based classes that are common totheearlycollegecourses.
DifferencesbyGPA
Comparisons on the basis of overall GPA relied on a self-reported measure because of the anonymity criterion of thestudy.Amediansplitwasperformed, resulting in a cutoff of 3.4 on a 4.0 scale. This corresponds approximately toaB+average.
Inreviewingtherelativerankorders between the two groups, only helpful-ness, use of in-class examples, and relevance of assignments differed by morethanafewrankings.Studentswith low GPAs placed greater importance on helpfulness and examples, whereas students with high GPAs placed more importance on the relevance of assign- ments.Thismayreflectstudents’abili-ties (i.e., students with low GPAs may bemorelikelytodependonthehelpful-nessoftheprofessorandavailabilityof examplestoassisttheminlearningthe material). Similarly, students with bet-terGPAsmaybemoreconsciousofthe rolethatassignmentsplayinmaintain-inggoodgrades.
TABLE3.ItemRankings(Overall,Factor,TopofMind)
Overall Sample
rank Item M SE
1 Coursegradingproceduresarefair. 6.41 0.042 2 Instructorisprepared. 6.38 0.041 3 Instructorishelpfulin
resolvingstudentquestions. 6.31 0.039 4 Instructorgiveshelpful
explanations. 6.31 0.039 5 Materialpresentedinclassis
relevant. 6.29 0.039 6 Instructorusesclasstimeto
helpthestudentslearn
subjectmatter. 6.31 0.044 7 Instructorisenthusiastic
aboutthesubject. 6.24 0.046 8 Instructorusesappropriate
examples. 6.19 0.041 9 Courseresponsibilitiesareclear. 6.17 0.048 10 Assignmentsarerelevant. 6.16 0.045 11 Examsarerelevantto
achievingcoursegoals. 6.12 0.049 12 Extrahelpisavailablewhenneeded. 6.10 0.049 13 Workloadisappropriatetoachievingcoursegoals. 6.03 0.052 14 Classisorganized. 5.96 0.046 15 Thereisanopportunitytoask
questionsinclass. 5.89 0.056 16 Courseobjectivesareclear. 5.77 0.061 17 Thereisanopportunityto
makecommentsinclass. 5.66 0.061 18 Textorreadingsarehelpful
toachievingcoursegoals. 5.60 0.066 19 Thereisanopportunityto
expressopinionsinclass. 5.53 0.064
TABLE4.SignificantDifferencesbyGender
Men(n=281) Women(n=200)
Item M SD M SD level
Exams 5.99 1.18 6.11 0.95 .01 Grade 6.33 0.98 6.53 0.81 .05 Organ 5.89 0.99 6.06 1.02 .10 Help 6.22 0.93 6.44 0.77 .01 Prep 6.32 0.97 6.47 0.83 .10 Extra 6.01 1.10 6.23 1.01 .05
Note.Exams=examsarerelevanttoachievingcoursegoals;Grade=coursegradingprocedures arefair;Organ=classisorganized;Help=instructorishelpfulinresolvingstudentquestions; Prep=instructorisprepared;Extra=extrahelpisavailablewhenneeded.
Significance
We found four significant differ-ences from the equality of means tests. Clarity of course objectives, useofin-classexamples,andtheabil-ity to voice comments and opinions in class were all found to be more important in the evaluation process tostudentswithlowGPAs.Thismay suggest that students believe these strategiesaremorehelpfultothemin doingwellinacourse.
We also examined the differenc-es between the best students (GPA ≥ 3.8) and those with low GPAs. Although a smaller cohort (n = 68), thestudentswithhighGPAs(includ-ingthosewhoreportedaperfect4.0) do present a markedly different pro-file. Mean equivalency tests showed differences for 7 of the 19 items, and students with high GPAs placed greaterimportanceoneachitem(see Table7).
DifferencesbyCollegeAffiliation
Because students in different majors may have different attitudes toward course content, comparison was made on the basis of college affiliation(i.e.,major).Giventhesize of our sample and the courses from which it was drawn, three cohorts werecreated:businessstudents,non-business students, and undeclared or unreportedstudents.Table8indicates therelativedifferencesinimportance among the three groups for each of the19items.
As noted, seven items were iden-tified by nonbusiness and undeclared or unreported students as being more important to the process than to ness students. This suggests that busi-ness students are inherently different from their colleagues in other colleges and may be less critical of ambiguous or nonparticipatory classroom environ-ments. In addition, students who have yet to declare or report a major found clarity of student responsibilities was ofgreaterimportancethaneitherofthe cohortswithidentifiedmajors,perhaps an indication of their larger decision-makingprocesswithrespecttoachoice ofmajor.
TABLE5.Top5ItemRankingsbyClassYear
Ranking Freshman Sophomore Junior Senior
1 Prep Prep Grade Grade 2 Help Enthus Mater Mater 3 Grade Help Time Time 4 Enthus Explan Exams Explan 5 Explan Grade Explan Prep
Note.Prep=instructorisprepared;Help=instructorishelpfulinresolvingstudentquestions; Grade=coursegradingproceduresarefair;Enthus=instructorisenthusiasticaboutthesubject; Explan=instructorgiveshelpfulexplanations;Mater=materialpresentedinclassisrelevant; Time=instructorusesclasstimetohelpthestudentslearnsubjectmatter;Exams=examsare relevanttoachievingcoursegoals.
TABLE6.SignificantDifferencesbyClassYear(Underclassmenvs. Upperclassmen)
Underclassmen(n=293) Upperclassmen(n=185)
Item M SD M SD level
Object 5.88 1.21 5.63 1.46 .05 Mater 6.18 0.92 6.47 0.67 .01 Work 5.96 1.19 6.16 1.04 .05 Exams 5.99 1.14 6.33 0.99 .01 Grade 6.33 0.99 6.55 0.77 .01 Time 6.22 1.01 6.43 0.81 .05 Enthus 6.34 0.89 6.07 1.16 .01 Comment 5.80 1.18 5.45 1.52 .01 Opinion 5.65 1.30 5.33 1.57 .05
Note.N=478;3studentsdidnotreport.Object=courseobjectivesareclear;Mater=material presentedinclassisrelevant;Work=workloadisappropriatetoachievingcoursegoals;Exams =examsarerelevanttoachievingcoursegoals;Grade=coursegradingproceduresarefair; Time=instructorusesclasstimetohelpthestudentslearnsubjectmatter;Enthus=instructoris enthusiasticaboutthesubject;Comment=thereisanopportunitytomakecommentsinclass; Opinion=thereisanopportunitytoexpressopinionsinclass.
Significance
TABLE7.SignificantDifferencesbyGPA
Topstudents(n=68) Restofsample(n=402)
Item M SD M SD level
Work 6.25 0.94 5.98 1.19 .05 Exams 6.34 1.06 6.07 1.11 .05 Text 5.91 1.27 5.52 1.47 .05 Explan 6.44 0.63 6.28 0.89 .10 Time 6.44 0.72 6.26 0.99 .10 Help 6.49 0.68 6.27 0.90 .05 Extra 6.28 0.96 6.06 1.09 .10
Note.N=470;11studentsdidnotreportGPA.A3.8GPAcutoffwasused.Work=workload isappropriatetoachievingcoursegoals;Exams=examsarerelevanttoachievingcoursegoals; Text=textorreadingsarehelpfultoachievingcoursegoals;Explan=instructorgiveshelpful explanations;Time=instructorusesclasstimetohelpthestudentslearnsubjectmatter;Help= instructorishelpfulinresolvingstudentquestions;Extra=extrahelpisavailablewhenneeded.
Significance
DISCUSSION
General
These results provide some inter-esting suggestions as to how students viewitemsonastandardSET.Although all items were found to be of some importance,notallitemswereweighted equally.Itemssuchasfairnessingrad-ing, relevant materials and exams, and using class time to help students learn thecoursecontentconsistentlyreceived high importance scores. Conversely, students gave the ability to participate activelyinclassandtheappropriateness ofthetextlowrankings.
The findings also suggest that item importance depends on the student’s own characteristics. Though gender was not an influence, class year pro-vided some points of differentiation. Forexample,underclassmenweremore concerned with issues of course struc-ture, such as grading, appropriateness ofworkload,andrelevanceofmaterials andexams,whicharegermanetodoing well in typical lecture-based courses. Upperclassmen were likely to place greaterimportanceondiscussion,which coincides with the more participative andengagednatureofmanyupperdivi-sioncourses.
GPA also plays a role in the impor-tance process. It is the students at the top (rather than the bottom) who are mostconcernedwithclarityofexpecta-tionsandavailabilityofhelp.Perhapsit istheabilitytomakeuseofaninstruc-tor to clarify issues and resolve
prob-lems that allows the best students to maintaintheirhighGPAs.
Last, the results of the present study suggest that as a whole, students value transparency in their courses. To know how they are graded and that grading isfair,tounderstandhowmaterialsand exams relate to course content, and to know that work assigned is appropriate tothegoalsofthecourseareallofhigh importance. Course structure items are also coupled with some key instructor traits: enthusiasm, helpfulness, prepa-ration, and good use of class time. In short,studentsvaluedknowingwhythey shouldcometoclassandwhythemate-rialtheywerelearningwasimportant.
LimitationsandFutureResearch Directions
Although this is the first study to quantitatively examine the relative importance of evaluation items to stu-dents, there are several limitations that should be acknowledged. First, the samplewasdrawnfromasingleuniver-sitypopulation,andtheresultscouldbe subject to the unique characteristics of thosestudents.Second,theuniversityin thestudyusedaself-generatedevalua- tioninstrumentasopposedtoonegen-eratedbyathirdparty.Futureresearch may wish to examine differences by universityorevaluationtype.
Researchersmayalsowishtoexamine howtheseimportancerankingstranslate into improvements in instructor evalu-ation scores. Do students evaluate, in
practice,accordingtotherankingssug-gestedbythepresentstudy?Itmayalso be valuable to consider whether such rankings contribute to overall course and instructor evaluations or whether suchscoresareunrelated.
We hope that this research brings new insight into the student evaluation process and encourages further inves-tigation into improving the process for studentsandinstructorsalike.
NOTE
Stacey Barlow Hills is co-director of the HuntsmanScholarsProgramandclinicalassistant professor of marketing at Utah State University, where she is responsible primarily for teaching marketing fundamentals and marketing research courses.Herresearchinterestscenteronbusiness educationandtechnologymarketing.
NataliNaegleisanundergraduatestudentin theJonM.HuntsmanSchoolofBusinessatUtah StateUniversity,whereshemajorsinmarketing and accounting. Her work has been presented at the National Conference for Undergraduate ResearchandtheMarketingManagementAsso-ciation. In Spring 2009, she was named Under-graduate Researcher of theYear in the School ofBusiness.
KennethR.Bartkus isaprofessorofmarket-ing and director of the Research Group at Utah State University. His teaching responsibilities include marketing fundamentals and promotions management. evaluation of teaching ability.Journal of Eco-nomicEducation,17,243–265.
Boex, L. F. J. (2000). Attributes of effective economics instructors: An analysis of student evaluations.Journal of Economic Education, 31,211–227.
Chen,Y.,Gupta,A.K.,&Howshower,L.(2004). Marketing students’ perceptions of teaching evaluations:Anapplicationofexpectancytheo-ry.MarketingEducationReview,14(2),23–36. Chonko,L.B.,Tanner,J.F.,&Davis,R.(2002).
Whataretheythinking?Students’expectations andself-assessments.JournalofEducationfor Business,77,271–281.
Clayson, D. E., & Haley, D. A. (1990). Stu-dentevaluationsinmarketing:Whatisactually beingmeasured? JournalofMarketingEduca-tion,12(3),9–17.
Divoky, J. J., & Rothermel, M. A. (1988). Stu-dent perceptions of the relative importances of dimensions of teaching performance across typeofclass.EducationalResearchQuarterly, 12(3),40–45.
Foote, D. A., Harmon, S. K., & Mayo, D. T. (2003).The impacts of instructional style and gender role attitude on students’ evaluation of instructors.Marketing Education Review, 13(2),9–19.
TABLE8.SignificantDifferencesbyCollegeAffiliation(.05Level ofSignificance)
Business(n=178) Nonbusiness(n=216) Undeclared(n=87) Item M SD M SD M SD
Object 5.51 1.51 5.87 1.22 6.05 1.25 Organ 5.79 1.08 6.01 0.95 6.20 0.90 Enthus 6.05 1.15 6.35 0.85 6.34 0.98 Help 6.18 0.97 6.35 0.77 6.47 0.85 Quest 5.69 1.30 6.00 1.09 6.02 1.39 Comment 5.43 1.44 5.76 1.22 5.90 1.33 Opinion 5.31 1.52 5.62 1.31 5.75 1.38
Note.Object=courseobjectivesareclear;Organ=classisorganized;Enthus=instructoris enthusiasticaboutthesubject;Help=instructorishelpfulinresolvingstudentquestions;Quest =thereisanopportunitytoaskquestionsinclass;Comment=thereisanopportunitytomake commentsinclass;Opinion=thereisanopportunitytoexpressopinionsinclass.
Holbrook,M.B.,&Hulbert,J.M.(1975).Multiat-tribute attitude models:A comparative analysis. AdvancesinConsumerResearch,2,375–388. Lammers,H.B.,Kiesler,T.,Curren,M.T.,Cours,
D., & Connett, B. (2005). How hard do I havetowork?Studentandfacultyexpectations regarding university work.Journal of Educa-tionforBusiness,80,210–213.
Nunnally,J.C.(1978).Psychometrictheory.New York:McGraw-Hill.
Patrick, B. C., Hisley, J., & Kempler,T. (2000). What’severybodysoexcitedabout?:Theeffects
ofteacherenthusiasmonstudentintrinsicmoti-vationandvitality.TheJournalofExperimental Education,68,217–236.
Sojka, J., Gupta, A. K., & Deeter-Schmelz, D. R. (2002). Student and faculty perceptions of student evaluations of teaching: A study of similarities and differences.College Teaching, 50(2),44–49.
Stratton, R. W., Myers, S. C., & King, R. H. (1994). Faculty behavior, grades, and student evaluations. Journal of Economic Education, 25,5–15.
Ulrich, T. A. (2005). The relationship of busi-nessmajortopedagogicalstrategies.Journalof
EducationforBusiness,80,269–274. Wallace,J.J.,&Wallace,W.A.(1998).Whythe
costs of student evaluations have long since exceededtheirvalue. IssuesinAccountingEdu-cation,13,443–447.
Whitworth, J. E., Price, B.A., & Randall, C. H. (2002). Factors that affect college of business studentopinionofteachingandlearning. Jour-nalofEducationforBusiness,77,282–289. Yunker,P.J.,&Yunker,J.A.(2003).Arestudent
evaluations of teaching valid? Evidence from an analytical business core course.Journal of EducationforBusiness,78,313–317.
��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
��������������������������������������������������������������������������������
��������������������
���������� ������ ����
������� �������� �������
����������������������� ������������������������������� ������������������������������������������
������������������������������������������������������������� ������������������������������
�����������������
��������������������
������������������������������������������� ������������ � ������
�� ��� ������
����������� �� ����������
�� ��������������� ������������
������������������������������ ���������������
