Abstract
In today’s ICT-based learning environment, students are expected to evaluate the structure of their courses and associated teaching methods. The expectation is that these evaluations will provide valuable feedback to teaching staff. This quantitative study explores the impact of students’ evaluations of teaching (SETs) and is based on the students’ perceptions of course structure and teaching approaches. The SETs are carried out via an online survey and are used to inform future students about the course structure and teaching style based on teacher recommendations as made by the students. The study utilized institutional data related to SETs and teachers’ recommendations. The online survey was conducted by the Institutional Effectiveness Department (IED) of the university at twenty-six different campuses of Tecnologico de Monterrey in Mexico. The dataset contained a composite record of SET, and their recommendations of 5275 teachers and data were analyzed using a hierarchical regression method performed to identify the impact of SETs and to see how course structure and teaching approaches correlate with teacher recommendations. Empirical findings confirm that the control variables (gender, nationality, employment status, and academic qualifications) have a 0.6% variance in teacher recommendation with no major effects of teacher’s gender on their recommendations. The hierarchical regression results demonstrate that SETs based on course structure and teaching approaches have a positive significant association with the recommendations the students make of their teachers, where students recommend their teachers on the bases of course structure compared with the teaching approaches. The reason for preferring a course structure of offered courses in registered degree programs is important for the students to develop skills necessary for their future career.
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Data availability
The dataset used and analyzed during this study is available from the first author (Asad Abbas) on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the technical and financial support of Writing Lab, Institute for the Future of Education, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico, in the production of this work.
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A. Abbas: Conception, literature review, research design, data curation, formal data analysis, writing – final draft, editing, revisions, and project administration.
H. Haruna: Literature review, validation, writing – review, comments, and editing.
A. Arrona-Palacios: Data curation, validation, writing – review and comments.
C. Camacho-Zuñiga: Data curation, writing – comments.
S. Núñez-Daruich: Data collection, validation, writing – comments.
J. F. Enríquez de la O: Data collection, validation, writing – comments.
R. Castaño-Gonzalez: Data collection, validation, writing – comments.
J. Escamilla: Writing – review and comments.
S. Hosseini: Conception, research design, validation, writing – review, comments, editing, and supervision.
All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Abbas, A., Haruna, H., Arrona-Palacios, A. et al. Students’ evaluations of teachers and recommendation based on course structure or teaching approaches: An empirical study based on the institutional dataset of student opinion survey. Educ Inf Technol 27, 12049–12064 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-022-11119-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-022-11119-z