Relationship between faculty personality and student evaluation of courses

College Student Journal, Dec, 2001 by Stephen J. Jenkins, Elizabeth Downs

This inquiry examined the relationship between instructor personality and student evaluation of courses for undergraduate and graduate courses. Instructor personality and student course evaluation data were collected from twelve randomly selected courses containing twelve faculty and 203 students. Results indicated that graduate courses were rated higher for instructors who were affective and sensitive while undergraduates rated courses higher for instructors who were rational, practical, and independent.

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Student evaluation of courses (SEC's) is one of the most widely used measures of teaching effectiveness (Centra, 1993). These ratings of instruction are often highly consequential in that they provide bases for teaching improvement and personnel decisions. According to Feldman's (1989) review of research, student evaluation of courses has been shown to relate to external indices of teaching effectiveness correlating, on average, .29 with instructor's ratings, .39 with administrator ratings, .55 with colleague ratings, and .40 with student achievement. Cashin's (1995) recent review confirms Feldman's earlier conclusions. In essence, research indicates that SEC's relates only modestly to other indices of teaching effectiveness and suggests that SEC's may be influenced by other factors.

Instructor personality is a logical consideration as many believe (e.g., Combs, 1969) that personality influences attitudes, behaviors and perceptions. To only a limited extent, has personality been studied in relation to SEC's. The major focus of this previous inquiry has been on instructor personality and it's relationship to SEC's. Results of these studies are inconclusive as some research has found no relationship between the two (Centra, 1993; Braskamp and Ory, 1994), while other efforts have reported that SEC's vary somewhat with instructor personality (Feldman, 1986; Renaud & Murray, 1996). Some evidence suggests that the relationship between instructor personality and SEC's is contingent on course type (Murray, Rushton, & Paunonen, 1990). This may be particularly true when comparing undergraduate courses to graduate courses where the two groups of students are often demographically different.

The intent of this inquiry is to examine the relationship between instructor personality and SEC's for education undergraduate and graduate courses. Differential outcome could be useful for instructor feedback and reducing the risk of over-interpretation of student course evaluation data.

Method

Participants

Twelve randomly selected College of Education classes at a Southeastern university participated in this study. There were twelve faculty, five undergraduate courses and seven graduate courses. Total sample size was 203, with 93 undergraduate and 110 graduate students.

Instruments

The California Psychological Inventory 4th edition (CPI) (Gough, 1996) was used to measure instructor personality. This inventory is the most widely used personality measure for normal functioning adults and has demonstrated adequate validity and reliability properties (Anastasi, 1996). The Student Evaluation of Educational Quality (SEEQ) (Marsh, 1991) was the SEC measure. This instrument has nine dimensions, which are: Learning; Instructor Enthusiasm; Organization; Group Interaction; Individual Rapport; Coverage; Grading; Assignments; Workload. Convincing psychometric data have been provided by Marsh (1991). SEEQ scores were averaged for each class.

Procedures

All students and faculty completed the CPI during the first or second week of Winter quarter, 1998. The SEEQ was completed by all students on the last class session prior to the final examination. This was in accordance with established course evaluation procedures. All participants were encouraged to be thoughtful and candid and were assured that their responses would be anonymous.

Results

The twenty subscales of the CPI were subjected to principal components factor analysis which yielded four factors with eigenvalues greater than 1. Collectively, these four factors accounted for 73% of the total variance in personality scores. Individual factor labels and percent variance were: Factor I - Mature (40%); Factor II - Dynamic (19%); Factor III - Adaptable (8%); Factor IV - Sensitive (6%).

Table 1 presents correlations between the CPI personality factor scores and the SEEQ dimensions for undergraduate courses. These correlations are based upon five faculty CPI scores with averaged SEEQ scores for each class.

While only two correlations were statistically significant, moderate to large negative correlations were observed for the Adaptable and Sensitive factors and most of the SEEQ dimensions. Courses were rated higher for instructors who were conventional, practical, and secure. Although statistically nonsignificant, these same two factors correlated moderately but positively with most of the SEEQ dimensions for graduate students. This indicates higher ratings for instructors who were flexible, sensitive, and support seeking. Table 2 presents the correlations between the CPI personality factors scores and the SEEQ dimensions for graduate courses. These correlations are based upon seven faculty CPI scores with averaged SEEQ scores for each class.