An analysis of one university's student evaluation used to measure teaching effectiveness in marketing classes found that students' perceptions of fairness, instructor knowledge and interest, and student learning all were related to how the instructor was evaluated. The rigor of the class was negatively related to the evaluation. The personality of the instructor was related to all other variables and was almost twice as strong of a predictor of the final evaluation as any other factor.
Over 99 percent of business schools use student evaluation of instruction to measure teaching and classroom performance. The resultant measures are utilized in judgments of merit pay, tenure, and promotion. In such an environment, an inspection of exceptions to their assumed validity is justified. This paper investigates one such issue that is rarely reported. Simply put: to what extent are students telling us the truth when they evaluate instruction? A literature review indicates that students (1) ignore or falsify answers in light of variables considered more important, (2) give subjective impressions in response to objective questions, and (3) at times give purposefully misleading and false responses. A survey of students found that a majority knew of respondents who had falsified evaluations and that an estimated 30 percent of evaluations contain answers the students knew were not true. In light of these findings, the validity of student evaluation of teaching to improve individual instructor performance, modify curriculum, and create comparative scales to evaluate faculty is called into question.
This exploratory study looks at the phenomena of texting in a marketing education context. It outlines the difficulties of multitasking within two metacognitive models of learning and sets the stage for further research on the effects of texting within class. Students in marketing classes in two different universities were surveyed. They received an average of 37 texts per day and initiated about 16. More than 90% of the respondents reported receiving texts while in class and 86% reported texting someone from class. Even though students believed they could follow a lecture and text at the same time, respondents who did text within marketing classes received lower grades. Contrary to other research, texting frequency was generally unrelated to GPA. Implications for both pedagogical issues and research in marketing education are discussed.
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