Qualities University Students Seek in a Teacher

INTRODUCTION Wright (1997) documented that the most important factor that affects student learning is the teacher. Similarly, Kwan (1999) argued that more could be done to improve education by raising the effectiveness of teachers than by changing any other single factor. Since faculty effectiveness is a concern, faculty and administrators are trying to upgrade faculty evaluation procedures to improve teachers' quality. Examining how to improve the effectiveness of the faculty evaluation process, Sporeen & Mortelmans (2006) and other scholars pointed out that apart from students' evaluation, other forms of evaluation should be used as complementary tools, such as (1) supervisor ratings, (2) self-ratings, and (3) peer ratings (Morgan, et al. 2003; Gursoy & Umbreit, 2005). Wright (2006) argues that current faculty evaluations are weak in providing teachers direction on how to improve their teaching or on why students respond as they do. Thus, the teaching evaluation should be improved so that it not only evaluates the faculty, but also provides directions as how to improve. In the same way, Steiner & Holley (2006) argued that teacher evaluation processes should not be an end-of-semester one-time evaluation, but instead should include, as a major component, a reliable and valid measure of a teacher's effects on student academic growth over time. Thus, many researchers argue that we need to have diversified ways to obtain feedbacks from students about faculty effectiveness. This paper studies students' perceptions of the relative ranking of qualities of an ideal teacher in two different universities. It contributes to the debates about teacher qualities, teaching assessment and teacher effectiveness by providing the students' perception of an ideal teacher. LITERATURE REVIEW Teaching Evaluation for Different Groups Teaching evaluations done by students are generally considered valid tools to measure faculty's performance and are widely used in universities. One group of researchers has analyzed the relationship between the teacher evaluation ratings and the perception of the instructor as a strict or lenient grader. Crumbley (2001) claimed that students use teaching evaluations to punish instructors for being strict in grading, for giving a lot of quizzes and homework, and for asking questions that students cannot answer. Bacon and Novotny (2002) found that students who strive for achievement rank teachers who grade strictly higher than teachers who grade leniently. Marsh (2001) and Gursoy and Umbreit (2005) found that students appreciate learning and hence there would be a positive relation between good workload and teaching evaluation ratings. Different student bodies or different disciplines can also affect the results of students' evaluations. Wright (1997) argued that homogeneity or heterogeneity of students' ability levels could affect teaching evaluation: teachers who teach classes that are more heterogeneous than homogeneous in ability levels are perceived to produce lesser effects on student learning and receive lower scores on teaching evaluations. Marsh & Dunkin (1992) found that faculty in science and natural science disciplines are frequently rated lower than are faculty in humanities. Similarly, Beran & Violato (2005) showed that courses in the social sciences receive higher ratings than courses in the natural sciences and that lab-type courses receive higher ratings than lectures or tutorials. Other researchers have analyzed the relationship between instructors' personality and their student evaluations. Emery et al. (2003) argued that popularity and personality traits affected the results of teaching evaluations and turned teaching evaluations into a popularity contest. Others have found that students correlated teaching competence and ability with the instructor's personality and gave higher evaluations to instructors who were seen as "kind and caring" and who had a "very positive feeling towards the class and students" (Kim et al. …