The Utility and Usefulness of an In-house Database: An Aid to Understand Student Ratings

<p>The purpose of this project is three fold:(a) a review of the literature regarding student ratings, (b) the creation of a student rating database and (c) the development of an applications manual to accompany the database. From a thorough review of the literature, this project identifies the utility and usefulness of student ratings as one element in the evaluation of instruction. The literature review addressed the following questions: (a) Do we need student ratings of instructors? (b) Can student rating data be used to improve instruction? (c) can we be sure that the data and the means by which they are acquired are valid and reliable? (d) Are there variables that may bias student ratings?, and (e) How can a database be used to help improve the effectiveness of classroom instruction? The second goal of this project was to established a student rating database designed to house data from past, present and future student ratings. The database contains variables currently collected by the student rating system of Western Kentucky University. In addition, the database contains variables identified by the research as helpful in the interpretation of rating data. Lastly, a database applications manual (see Appendix) was developed which provides the user step-by-step directions for program access, data entry, data storage, and data retrieval/export.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Education Specialist

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Department of Psychology

Year

1995

Author dc:creator

• Tolley, Mark

• Education
• Psychology

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/890

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.wku.edu:theses-1893