A Conjoint-based approach to student evaluations of teaching performance

Abstract

In recent years, the need for greater accountability and improvement in teaching's quality has become a major issue in higher education. The results of student evaluation of teaching are increasingly used to make judgments about teaching quality, career advancement, and the funding of teaching itself. An important component of any such student evaluation is the communication of rating results in a manner that allows for fair and meaningful interpretations and comparisons of results by a wide range of evaluation users. In this paper, an approach for a more objective evaluation of university teachers is proposed, one which is based on previously obtained conjoint analysis data concerning criteria importance from a student's point of view. Therein, an illustrative example is given to demonstrate the efficiency and practical usage of such a proposed approach.