Designing a valid EFL-specific teacher evaluation form for students' ratings

Abstract

Teacher evaluation forms (TEF) for students‟ ratings have been used since the1920s. Many researchers have been questioning the validity of such forms since then. There have been many attempts to design field-specific TEFs in several studies. The present study aims to design a valid EFL-specific TEF for students‟ ratings. The instruments of the study are an online questionnaire, three versions of the teacher evaluation form and the form itself (the final version of the form). The participants are 392 students from different proficiency levels (elementary, lower intermediate, intermediate, upper intermediate and advanced) and 21 teachers at Anadolu University School of Foreign Languages (AUSFL), and three teachers from different universities. The information gathered from the online questionnaire and the semi-structured interviews on the three versions of the form was analyzed qualitatively, and a final version of the form was designed. The piloting of the final version of the form was analyzed quantitatively. The qualitative analysis showed that the current TEF for students‟ ratings at AUSFL was not satisfactory, and the literature on effective teacher behaviors and the distinctive features of language teachers provide a good basis for designing the new form. The quantitative findings of the study showed that the final version of the form was highly reliable, though many items were positively skewed, showing that they may not be ideal for distinguishing between teachers. The factor analysis of the form in this study revealed only a single factor, suggesting that students do not distinguish between various aspects of good teaching; this situation may be inferred as evidence for a halo effect in student‟s ratings.