Comparison of Teaching Quality Scores of Teachers as Evaluated by Students of Different Grade Point Averages

Background: Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) is a long-established tradition for teacher evaluation. Teaching evaluation has many proponents and opponents. Meanwhile, the probable effects of confounding factors such as student and teacher’s gender, student grade, and teacher’s personality traits have always been studied. Given the contradictory results reported in the literature and opinions of teachers regarding the potentially higher value to be diffused with the views of the top students, this study was conducted to evaluate the effect of total grade point average (GPA) of students on their evaluation scores of teachers. The study also investigated the associations between teacher’s gender, teacher’s academic degree and rank, and the scores of teaching quality.Methods: In this descriptive study, analyses were made in four consecutive academic semesters from 2015 to 2016. A total of 7518 questionnaires, previously confirmed in terms of validity and reliability, were completed by students of medicine, dentistry, nursing and midwifery, allied medicine, and health schools. The questionnaires contained 15 items scored on a 5-point Likert scale. Data were analyzed in SPSS software version 16 using ANOVA and Scheffé’s post-hoc test. The level of significance wasconsidered at 0.05 for all statistical tests.Results: The findings showed that teacher evaluation scores varied significantly across different GPA categories. The difference was evident between the categories A and C as well as B and C. The relationship between gender, academic rank and degree of the teacher, and teaching quality score was not significant in any discipline.Conclusion: Significant differences were found between the categories A and C as well as B and C. However, given the concerns about inflation or trade of scores and the possibility of ignoring the students by teachers if only assessment by top students is considered, it is better to use 360-degree evaluation which is a multi-dimensional evaluation. This prevents from probable biases in student surveys.