Developing and testing a student-focussed teaching evaluation survey for university instructors

This paper describes a process for developing a student-focussed survey to gather teaching- and learning-related feedback from university students and examines the psychometric properties of a short survey for confidential feedback to lecturers in higher education regarding teaching. Analyses were performed at the level of individual respondents and on teacher-average responses. Principal component and exploratory factor analyses at both levels indicated a single underlying lecturing effectiveness factor. Scale scores had high internal consistency. The items and subsequent scale were also consistent in terms of interrater reliability, i.e., the average consistency of ratings of an individual lecturer. Finally, at both levels of analysis, strong correlations between responses to each item and an overall rating provided support for the concurrent validity of the items. These analyses provide initial evidence of the suitability of the survey for gathering confidential student feedback on lecturing effectiveness.