Based on a longer report with the same title, this digest summarizes current efforts to increase the quality of college teaching. The report uses a model that views strategies for improving instruction as helping motivate individual faculty members to improve their teaching by actively changing (and maintaining) certain of their instructional…

This article examines evidence supporting the validity of peer evaluations of teaching, focusing on relationships between peer evaluations and student evaluations of teaching. The article discusses conditions in which peer and student ratings are comparable, beginning with studies that K. A. Feldman included in his 1989 meta-analysis and…

A well-conceived system of performance appraisal can indicate the conditions and circumstances motivating individual faculty members to improve their teaching. The performance appraisal system must be sensitive to the different ways in which faculty members fulfill their professional goals of teaching, research, and service. The system needs to…

The interrater reliability and factor structure of colleague ratings of university faculty were studied for 46 faculty members from 4 departments within the School of Education and Allied Professions at the University of Miami (Florida). Within each department, each faculty member rated every other faculty member using two methods: (1) a global…

To avoid the costs to the college and its students of making a poor hiring decision, Edison State Community College in Ohio uses the techniques of descriptive interviewing and teaching simulations to select new faculty. In descriptive interviewing, questions focus on how the candidate has actually behaved in real situations rather than on vague…

A model explaining various influences on general student opinions of faculty teaching performance was developed for a college in the University of North Dakota (UND). The goals were to (1) find a way to remove influences of improper criteria from general measures of teaching performance and (2) determine which differences in adjusted general…

Since speech communication is experiencing numerous changes, it is useful to examine some of the causes of inadequate teaching in the field and various ways to solve the problems. Some causes of poor teaching are (1) the small value placed on university teaching compared to other criteria for tenure and promotion; (2) the classification or…

This study examines the psychosocial conditions of generativity and stagnation and personal characteristics related to these conditions among senior faculty at five community colleges in Massachusetts. Chapter I outlines the problem and purpose of the study; defines "stuckness" as a lack of challenge or career options, contrasting it with burnout;…

Since data from student evaluations of teachers are too often treated as though they were based upon superficial opinion surveys, this paper suggests a policy for evaluating teachers. The policy amounts in part to a method of jury selection, the jury being the student raters of a course. Several control variables with questionnaire items are…

Four panel presentations: "A Comprehensive Program for Evaluation of Teaching" by Paul G. Carlson, "A Student's Perspective on Student Evaluation of Teaching" by Robert E. Henry, "Evaluation of Teaching: One Faculty Member's Viewpoint" by Paul Zanowiak, and "Evaluation of Teaching: An Academic Administrator's View" by Donald Sorby. (JT)

A pharmacy evaluation instrument was constructed to differentiate the population of pharmacy instructors on several student-rated characteristics. The methodology was designed to assess the stability of the factor structure over time. The relative "efficiency" of the pharmacy instrument was compared to a campus-wide faculty evaluation instrument.…

Some of the problems in evaluating the teaching effectiveness of university nursing teachers are discussed. The importance of clinical nursing experience to successful teaching weighs most heavily with some educators but other attributes are also necessary to determine teaching quality and evaluation criteria. (MF)

Student rating of teachers in science, math, education, social sciences, humanities, and business were analyzed to determine teacher attributes which correlated with teaching effectiveness ratings. Results: knowing when students understood him, increasing students' appreciation of the subject, answering impromptu questions satisfactorily,…

Relates part-time faculty effectiveness to recruitment and selection, orientation, supervision and support, evaluation, and professional development opportunities. Recommends improved communication and interaction between part-time faculty and administrators. (DMM)

Sources of bias in students' ratings of college faculty raise questions about the use of these ratings in making personnel decisions that affect the teacher's professional career. Student ratings should be only one component of the evidence collected to evaluate the effectiveness of college faculty. (PP)