The relationship between faculty teaching preparation and student ratings of teaching

Abstract

Students in higher education complain regularly that their classes are boring and their instructors seem not to know how to teach. If, in fact, those instructors do not know how to teach, there are likely many reasons for this. There is also a great deal of literature, which this paper reviews, about helping those instructors to do a better job. What seems to be missing from the mix is understanding whether learning to teach before getting the instructional position actually helps faculty members (broadly defined) be more effective at teaching. Logic would claim that a positive relationship exists between these two factors. However, there is no quantitative data proving this claim, which results in a gap in the research. This paper serves, at least in part, to fill that gap. The question under consideration is whether there is a relationship between a faculty member's preparation for teaching and his or her scores on the student ratings of teaching (SRT) for classes he or she has taught. This study reviews one institution of higher education and uses a teaching preparation survey with a random sample of instructors from the Fall 2010 semester. The results of the survey were used as an entry point to that institution's database of SRT scores. Multiple regression analysis of the SRT scores combined with different elements of preparation showed a weak but positive relationship between preparation and SRT scores.