Student Perceptions of Instruction

Abstract

With the increase in specialization occur ring in all professions, the use of multiple instructor courses appears to be a future trend in professional and graduate schools. This study describes a method of obtaining student perceptions of the instruction received in 333 lectures given by 175 instructors in an Introduction to Clinical Medicine course. An 87% response rate was obtained from the 199 students—a 36% increase over that obtained from the same students using a more common method. The experimental method proved to be administratively parsimonious. Suggestions for improving the student response rate and for promoting a more careful consideration by the students of their ratings are reported.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Ellis, H. C. (1972) Fundamentals of Human Learning and Cognition. Dubuque, IA: William C. Brown.

Irby, D. M. , N. F. Shannon , M. Scher , P. Peckham , G. Ko , and E. Davis (1977) " The use of student ratings in multi-instructor courses." J. of Medical Education 52: 668-673.

Thornedike, R. L. and E. Hagen (1969) Measurement and Evaluation in Psychology and Education, Third Edition. New York: John Wiley.

Whitney, D. R. and P. R. Weerts (1974) "Student perceptions of teaching (SPOT): I. design for a better system." Evaluation and Examination Service: Memo No. 25.