Dimensions of student evaluation of teaching forms at university level

Abstract

When instructional effectiveness is evaluated, it is essential to gather data from different sources to obtain valid judgments. Among several ways to assess instructional effectiveness, Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET), also known as Student Ratings of Instruction (SRI), is a process applied towards the end of the term in many academic settings to collect data generally through a form on the students’ views about an instructor’s in-class teaching performance. However, certain factors might affect students’ responses to the items in the form during the SET process. That is, the dimensions of the form might be different from the initially developed one and different dimensions with different items might arise. The aim of the current study is to analyze the dimensions of an SET form in the preparatory school of a non-profit private university to see how different groups perceive the items in the SET form. The participants are all English language learners from different English language levels. The data were collected in the Fall term, in the 12th week of teaching, in the first contact hour. The data were analyzed through a software program running principal component analysis (PCA). The findings revealed that the structure of the form can be considered unidimensional and there is one dominant latent factor, named as instructional effectiveness by the researcher. In other words, the responses of the different groups are mostly related to instructional effectiveness and are not affected by other potential factors.