Faculty perception of improvements to instructional practices in response to student ratings

摘要

Enhancing quality of instruction can be defined as the main purpose of instructional evaluation procedures in universities. Many universities collect and analyze feedback information from student ratings for the purpose of instructional improvement. Nevertheless, concrete research evidence is still needed to explore whether this purpose has been actually achieved. This study investigated the perceived role that student ratings actually played in making improvements in instructional practices within the context of a public research university. The population comprised 1,139 professors, associate professors, senior lecturers, and lecturers. The responses were subjected to descriptive statistics, principal component analysis, one-way ANOVA, and independent t test. The findings uncovered faculty responsiveness to student ratings and identified specific practices that they modified in response to results from student ratings. The findings also took cognizance of the respondents' recommendations in order to boost the quality of instruction such as augmenting feedback from student ratings by instructional consultation and providing written explanations to assist higher education faculty in interpreting the results.