Some Observations on the Relationships Between Research Productivity and Student Evaluations of Courses and Teaching.

Within a university there are three commonly held viewpoints on the relationships between teaching and research. Each of these three viewpoints is associated with one of the three principal memberships that make up the academic community. Students hold that university professors often neglect teaching for the pursuit of re search. University administrators rejoin that, in proper proportions, teaching and research are mutually fructify ing. Professors believe that professional recognition and academic advancement are granted primarily on the basis of published research and only secondarily for excellence in teaching. Few published studies have dealt with the relationships between teaching effectiveness and research productivity. Voeks (1962), using data from the University of Wash ington, concluded that there was no relationship between publishing and effective teaching. More recently, Bresler (1968) reported (without statistical analysis) that, at Tufts University, "the students rated as their best instruc tors those faculty members who had published articles and who had received or were receiving government sup port for research." He gave scant information, however, about the relationship between the numbers of publica tions and student evaluations of instructors. Indeed, the only relevant data presented by Bresler were in a table that indicated that for a sample of thirty-one senior science and engineering faculty, excellence in teaching, type of support, and number of publications covaried positively. Given these somewhat contradictory and in conclusive findings, it is the purpose of this study to investigate further the relationships between teaching effectiveness and research productivity (as defined by numbers and types of publications). As is usual in the social sciences, there are problems of criteria. On what dimensions and with which instru ments can one measure and evaluate teaching and re search? Recently, student organizations in many schools have published annual critiques of courses and instruc tors (see Newsweek, Feb. 24, 1969, pp. 81-82). Besides published (and unpublished) student opinions, other measures of effective teaching include peer ratings, rat ings by departmental chairmen, and even students' achievements. Research productivity might be measured by bibliographic counts, peer ratings, offices held in pro fessional societies, citation counts, grants awarded, and professional income (Bayer & Folger, 1966). In this study, course and instructor evaluations were defined by those scores obtained from student course evaluations. Research productivity was defined by those scores derived from a weighted combination of the num ber of books, articles, technical reports and bulletins, and book reviews published within a given time period.