Do professors with outstanding research performance deliver excellent lectures?: influential dimensions of professorial competence on lecture ratings

This study examines whether outstanding researchers also deliver high-quality lectures at universities. Analysing lecture evaluation data for 24,016 courses offered at P University in Seoul between 2016 and 2019, this study combines quantitative and qualitative methods to explore the relationship between research and teaching. Across multiple quantitative methods of multidimensional scaling, t-tests, and regression analysis, professors with strong research performance show only a limited and field-dependent association with student satisfaction. However, when the analytical focus shifts from general satisfaction at an aggregate level to student competency development, a positive relationship emerges. The study draws three key implications. First, professors with excellent research performance contribute to developing students’ competencies, yet this relationship is not captured when lecture evaluations focus on general satisfaction. Second, for research-active professors to deliver fruitful lectures, an integration of research and teaching must be supported through policy tools like reducing teaching loads and greater autonomy in course design. Third, lecture evaluation systems need to incorporate different dimensions of concepts. The notion of ‘student growth’ captures the contribution effect of professors’ research capacity better than satisfaction.