Course Evaluation by Students: The Relationship of Instructional Characteristics to Overall Course Quality.

Student ratings of teaching effectiveness and course quality are widely used to evaluate most university courses. This study investigated the relationship of medical students' ratings of basic science course characteristics to their overall evaluation of these courses. Whether the relationship was similar across basic science courses, and whether course year has an impact on the instructional characteristics students used in making their judgments of overall course quality were also studied. Approximately 160 first-year and 160 second-year medical students were asked to evaluate basic science courses (14 first-year and 16 second-year), for a total of 3,117 individual evaluations made with an instrument developed for the curriculum evaluation process at the medical school. Sixteen instructional items were examined as predictor variables. While 10 of the 16 predictors emerged as significant characteristics using a hierarchical linear modeling calculation, the most dominant predictors clearly were students' ratings on the administrative aspects of a course and the quality of the lectures. Following closely behind these items was the extent to which students felt the course promoted active learning. Other variables also asserted significant influence, although different predictors emerged for each course. These finding suggest that no one student rating item will be useful for all purposes, although when they are combined, a sense of overall course quality can be obtained. (Contains 5 tables and 15 references.) (SLD) ******************************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ******************************************************************************** Course Evaluation by Students: The Relationship of Instructional Characteristics to Overall Course Quality Linda Akel Althouse Columbia Assessment Services, Inc. Frank T. Stritter, Douglas E. Strong, William B. Mattern Th University of North Carolina at Chapel Ifill U.S . DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of ducational Reseatch and Improvement EDU ONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. 0 Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. CD CI) CO C1 Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association San Diego, California April 13-17, 1998 2 1 PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY uAde, 14-1 114ou-s__ TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) Course Evaluation by Students: The Relationship of Instructional Characteristics to Overall Course Quality Linda Akel Althouse Columbia Assessment Services, Inc. Frank T. Stritter, Douglas E. Strong, William D. Mattern University of North Carolina School of Medicine Introduction Student ratings of teaching effectiveness and course quality are widely used to evaluate most university courses. Administrators use results of such evaluations in making decisions regarding instructors' promotion, tenure, and salary. Instructors use them in improving their course design and instruction. Students use them to reflect on their overall satisfaction with the school and the educational experience. Researchers use them to identify effective ways of teaching and learning. Because of their widespread use and their importance in decision making, student evaluations of teaching effectiveness have been referred to as "the most thoroughly studied of all forms of personnel evaluation, and one of the best in terms of being supported by empirical research" (Marsh, 1984; Marsh, 1987, p. 369). Extensive researCh has shown that student evaluations are widely used, reliable, stable, and valid (Abrami, d'Apollonia, & Cohen, 1990; Feldman, 1988; Marsh, 1987; Murray et al., 1990; Neumann & Neumann, 1983). However, most of the literature regarding student evaluation of effective instruction was found to focus on teacher behaviors rather than on course characteristics or quality (Abrami, d'Apollonia, & Cohen, 1997). In addition, while a number of studies consider the determinants of students' instructional evaluation across widely differing academic areas (Feldman, 1978; Marsh, 1984), no study was found which reviewed instructional evaluation across specific courses within a particular academic area, such as medicine. In fact, Abrahams and Friedman (1996) noted that despite the prevalence of the use of course evaluations by medical schools, the medical education literature on course and curriculum evaluation is sparse. However, in order to better evaluate curricula and provide faculty development, medical educators need to know the instructional characteristics that contribute the most to students' perceptions of overall course quality. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate the relationship of medical students' ratings of basic science course characteristics to their overall evaluation of those courses. The specific questions guiding this