Student Evaluation of Teaching Index vs. Student's Self-Evaluation Index: Understanding the Impact of Teaching Performance on Student Satisfaction

Though, there are useful metrics to evaluate academic research and scholarship (i.e., through refereed journal publications, funded proposals, etc.), research to identify effective ways to evaluate teaching at the college level continues.To evaluate classroom teaching performance, the most prevalent assessment tool that is currently being used is the end of semester quantitative student evaluation.In this evaluation scheme, students respond to a number of questions through numerical ranking.These questions are divided into two categories.Through Category 1 questions (i.e., whether student are prepared for class or if they are intellectually challenged by the course plan), students evaluate themselves.Based on their feedbacks, a numerical index, known as the Student's Self-Evaluation (SSE) Index is calculated.A higher index value typically indicates a higher level of the students' satisfaction.Through Category II questions, a teacher's performance and effectiveness on teaching is evaluated.Based on the students' feedback, a numerical index, known as the Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) Index is calculated.The SET index can be seen as a measure of an instructor's achievements in teaching.Though, studies were conducted to understand the implications of SSE and SET in various manners, no comparisons has been made to correlate these two indices.The purpose of this work is to find the statistical correlations between these two indices.