Development of valid and reliable tools for student evaluation of teaching

The objective of this project was to develop valid and reliable course and instructor student evaluation tools (SETs) of teaching for utilization by a college of pharmacy.

A collection of 119 course and instructor evaluation items was compiled from a review of the primary literature and grouped into six different themes (subscales): organization, communication, motivation, rapport, fairness, and learning. Input was sought from the college of pharmacy faculty to reduce the list of items to a more manageable pilot tool (27 for course evaluations; 29 for instructor evaluations) for developing pilot SETs. The results were analyzed for internal consistency and reliability using Cronbach's alpha, and whether factor structures aligned with the content structure using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA).

The Cronbach's alpha for all six subscales in the designed instructor evaluation and for three of the six subscales in the designed course evaluation were above 0.9, indicating high internal consistency and reliability. The CFA results indicated a moderate model fit with factor loadings for all items above 0.6. The correlation coefficients between each dimension were about 0.8, indicating high correlations among dimensions. Those data items found to be valid were then used to construct new course and instructor evaluation instruments, both consisting of three validated items in each of the six themes (subscales).

This report describes the process that one college of pharmacy employed to develop a valid and reliable SET. The methodology can inform other colleges and schools of pharmacy who wish to design, revise, or develop their own SETs.