Assessment of the Relationship Between Level of Achievement and Perceived Importance of Evaluating Teaching process

Abstract

Abstract Five hundred eight students (132 male and 376 female) enrolled in three different randomly selected faculties at a public university in Jordan during the first semester 2013/2014. They were asked to fill a survey of 20 items (4-points likert scale type) describing general attitudes and perceptions about the evaluation of teaching process. Out of these twenty items, six items were related directly to students’ perceptions of the importance of teaching evaluation process. This study was interested in those specific items. Analysis of the total score of perceived importance showed (M=16.79; SD=3.02). The distribution was slightly negatively skewed. Chi-square statistic for independency was used to examine the relationship between items’ responses and level of achievement. Significant relationship was found between achievement level and two items: item 1 “teaching evaluation leads to the improvement and development of teaching”, (χ2 = 15.4; P≤0.00). Item 12 “The administration of the university is very much interested in students’ evaluations of teaching”, (χ2 = 13.6; P≤ 0.00). In general, importance of teaching evaluation perceived was not as extremely high as expected. Therefore, this is expected to affect the level of seriousness when responding to the evaluation form, which leads to lack ness of validity, reliability, and confidence in their evaluations.