Evaluating tertiary teaching: A New Zealand perspective

Abstract The purpose of this research was to test the applicability of two American instruments designed to assess tertiary students' evaluations of teaching effectiveness with New Zealand students. The scales were found to have high internal consistency reliability coefficients, most of the items were seen to be appropriate, and every item was considered of importance by at least some of the students. In addition, all but the Workload/Difficulty items clearly differentiated between “good,” “average,” and “poor” lectures. Further analyses generally supported both the factor structure identified in earlier research and the convergent and discriminate validity of the scales from both instruments. This research has provided strong support for the applicability of these American instruments for evaluating effective teaching at a New Zealand university.

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