Prior Subject Interest, Students' Evaluations, And Instructional Effectiveness

Area of Science:

• Educational Psychology
• Higher Education Studies

Background:

• Student ratings are commonly used to evaluate instructional effectiveness.
• Factors influencing student ratings are crucial for understanding educational outcomes.
• Prior Subject Interest (PSI) is a potential, yet under-explored, predictor of student evaluations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the correlation between students' Prior Subject Interest and their ratings of instructional effectiveness.
• To compare the predictive power of PSI against other student, course, and instructor characteristics.
• To examine the relationship between PSI and instructor self-evaluations of teaching effectiveness.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of student ratings of instructional effectiveness across 1102 university classes.
• Correlational analysis comparing PSI with 15 other student/course/instructor variables.
• Analysis of instructor self-evaluations from 329 classes, examining correlations with PSI.

Main Results:

• Prior Subject Interest showed significant positive correlations with student ratings of instructional effectiveness (ranging up to .44).
• PSI was a stronger predictor of student ratings than other considered variables like Expected Grade, Class Size, and Workload.
• Instructor self-evaluations were also positively correlated with PSI, particularly for dimensions like Learning/Value.

Conclusions:

• Prior Subject Interest is a key factor influencing both student perceptions and instructor self-assessments of teaching effectiveness.
• Student ratings appear to accurately reflect the impact of PSI on instructional quality.
• Educational institutions should consider fostering student interest to enhance perceived and actual instructional effectiveness.