Awarding merit pay is a two-step process involving a performance review and a monetary calculation. A model that will distribute a finite amount of money while taking into account performance levels and base salaries of evaluees is described. (Author/MLW)

Information obtained from department heads as well as from staff highlight the difficulties of heads who have to make evaluative statements on departmental staff that may further or slow down their career. Heads may have positional authority, but academic conventions often prevent heads from exercising it. (Author/MLW)

The relationship between various types of scholarly activities and evaluations of teaching with respect to 67 business administration faculty members was examined. The higher status type (books, refereed journals, national presentations) of research showed no relationship to teaching evaluations but there was a modest positive relationship between…

Student evaluations of instruction have long been used to evaluate the teaching performance of instructors. However, despite the widespread use of data from student evaluations for the purpose of determining faculty teaching effectiveness, a review of the literature in the area indicates that issues concerning the validity and usefulness of such…

A study expands on an earlier study by developing a prototypical evaluation instrument for directors of forensics. A 3-part questionnaire was constructed to assess the reliability and validity of the instrument used in the earlier study. Questionnaires were returned by 63 of 205 directors of forensics programs representing both public and private…

In order to address the issue of the reliability and possible bias of students' evaluation of the performance of college teachers, an unobtrusive indicator of teacher performance was investigated. The indicator was the degree to which teachers develop a following among students, measured by how often students return to teachers for additional…

The relationship between students' first impressions of a course (formed on the basis of their initial exam scores) and end-of-term teacher evaluation ratings was studied. University students enrolled in freshman, sophomore, and junior level courses took all tests and completed the instructor evaluation form the week before the fourth quarterly…

A national study was conducted at the University of Texas to ascertain the current status of the practice of evaluating full-time faculty in public two-year colleges. Surveys were sent to the chief academic officer of 210 randomly selected two-year colleges requesting information on the climate of the organization when the evaluation system was…

Individual and institutional/environmental factors that distinguish "vital" professors from a "representative" group of their colleagues were investigated. Of concern was whether the faculty vitality concept discriminates among professors in meaningful ways (i.e., regarding their professional attitudes, practices,…

Professors were interviewed to ascertain the evaluative information they collected about their professional activities. Student ratings were used by most faculty to evaluate their teaching. Almost all received peer reviews of research productivity. Qualitative evaluative information was seen as more credible than objective ratings when used for…

Recent changes at institutions of higher education in America have caused new interest in faculty development. This paper is concerned with faculty development in the sciences and engineering and is a report submitted to the National Science Foundation (NSF). The contents include faculty development: (1) general perspectives; (2) in the sciences…

Student evaluations of an instructor who uses objective tests exclusively are here compared to evaluations of the same instructor using classroom tests which combine objective and subjective test formats. Class size and hour and manner of instruction were held constant; students were chosen at random by the computer registration process. The…

After listing criticisms of previous rankings of doctoral programs in reading, a new ranking is suggested, based on results of the International Reading Association's Outstanding Dissertation Award. This ranking shows little correlation with previous studies using other methods. The University of Alberta has produced the largest number of award…

Reports on a survey of 117 full-time faculty and 36 academic administrators in six rural Washington community colleges conducted to assess perceptions of current and ideal purposes and methods of faculty evaluation. Reveals a high positive relationship between faculty and administrator attitudes. Includes a literature review. (AYC)

The difficulty of evaluating published articles in journals outside a discipline by promotion review committees is discussed. A study is described that identified journals in the pharmacy disciplines and had senior faculty members in all the pharmacy disciplines rank order the journals. (Author/MLW)