1. Perceived Purpose of Midterm Evaluations and the Effect on Student Responses
Andrew Caudill
Western Kentucky University
Dr. Steven Wininger Western Kentucky University

2. Previous Research: Cashin (1995) reviewed numerous studies:
Does the Disclosed Purpose of Student Feedback Affect the Nature and Quality of the Feedback?
Previous Research:
Cashin (1995) reviewed numerous studies:
purpose of student ratings is to make personnel decisions as compared to those that are used for improvement as the purpose.

3. Previous Research (cont.)
Driscoll and Goodwin’s (1979) three types of directions:
1) ratings to make promotion, tenure and salary decisions about the professor.
2) course improvements
3) no explicit purpose articulated (ratings were to be given to the course instructor)
92 classes surveyed

4. Previous Research (cont.)
Young, Delli and Johnson (1999)
Midterm evaluations
141 graduate students
The three sets of directions:
1) no directions given
2) Course Improvement
3) Personnel decision involving salary distribution.

5. Primary Research Questions & Hypothesis
Does perceived purpose of course evaluation affect student ratings?
Does attribution of performance due to ability and effort affect ratings?
Tenure, Promotion, & Salary directions will yield the highest ratings
Participants attributing performance to ability and effort will give higher ratings.

6. Secondary Questions
Does expected grades in course affect the type of evaluations given?
Does type of Attributions linked with grades affect the performance in the course?

7. Attribution Theory
Concerned with how people explain the behaviors of themselves and/or others.
8 Categories
Strategy
Ability
Person’s teaching
Task Difficulty
Short Term Effort
Health/Mood
Help from others
Luck

8. Method Participants:338 total
recruited from 4 introductory Psychology courses.
198 females
132 males

9. Measures History of the Student Instructional Report (SIR II)
Best Course Evaluation Instrument
Educational Testing Service (ETS)

10. Measures Student Instructional Report (SIR) II
contained 45 items to assess eight aspects of instruction and evaluation:
1) course organization and planning
2) communication
3) faculty/student interaction
4) assignments, exams, and grading
5) supplementary instructional methods
6) course outcomes
7) student effort and involvement
8) course difficulty, work load and pace.

11. Measures (cont.)
Only five of the eight aspects of the SIR II were used:
course evaluation and planning
communication
faculty/student interaction
assignments, exams, and grading
course difficulty, work load, and pace

12. Procedures
Professors were approached and informed of main purpose of study
Students were surveyed during either the 7th or 8th week
Preface to administration
Oral Directions
“you are about to complete a midterm evaluation of your instructor. Please note that…” – located on all evaluations

13. Procedures (cont.) Three different directions were used:
…the results of the evaluation will be used
1) by the instructor to improve the instructor’s approach to teaching for the rest of the semester.
2) by the instructor to improve the course and the instructor’s approach to teaching for the next semester.
3) used by the administration to make tenure, promotion, and salary decisions about the instructor.

14. Results
Directions
no significant differences, only trends

15. Results
Attributions
Significant multivariate effect but no significant univariate effects

16. Results (cont.) Grade O&P Com F/S I AEG O & P .16 .81 .21 .78 .83 .14
Expected Grade
There was a significant relationship between expected grade and ratings given
Grade
O&P
Com
F/S I
AEG
O & P
.16
.81
.21
.78
.83
.14
.67
.69
.31
.68
.71
.86
All correlations significant at p < .01

17. Results (cont.) Attribution of Expected Grade Overall
Highest ratings for three of the four SIR subscales: Teacher, Strategy, Effort
However, with the AEG items, the highest rating attributed performance to ability then strategy and effort
Overall
Directions and Perceptions of purpose resulted in a trend, tenure/promotion/salary = higher ratings.
Higher expected grades = higher ratings.
Grade inflation may have impact on evaluation distributions i.e., class with all A’s = higher ratings

18. Questions?