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I liked your course because you taught me well: The influence of grades, workload, expectations and goals on students' evaluations of teaching

Remedios, R.; Lieberman, D.A.

Authors

R. Remedios

D.A. Lieberman



Abstract

There has been considerable debate as to whether course evaluations are valid measures of teaching quality, or whether students instead reward tutors who give them high grades and assign low levels of work. To assess the factors that influence course evaluations, we measured university students' achievement goals and expectations at the beginning of the semester and also obtained information on grades and workload. Although grades and course difficulty did have a small influence on end-of-semester course ratings, structural modelling revealed that ratings were largely determined by how much students enjoyed or felt stimulated by the course content, which in turn depended on the perceived quality of teaching. Students with a mastery goal were more likely to look forward to the course, and this also contributed to positive course evaluations, but the effect was small. Overall, the results suggested that by far the largest determinant of student evaluation of courses is the quality of the teaching.

Citation

Remedios, R., & Lieberman, D. (2008). I liked your course because you taught me well: The influence of grades, workload, expectations and goals on students' evaluations of teaching. British Educational Research Journal, 34(1), 91-115. https://doi.org/10.1080/01411920701492043

Journal Article Type Article
Online Publication Date Sep 22, 2007
Publication Date 2008-02
Deposit Date Jul 7, 2008
Journal British Educational Research Journal
Print ISSN 0141-1926
Electronic ISSN 1469-3518
Publisher Wiley
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 34
Issue 1
Pages 91-115
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/01411920701492043