Some characteristics of teaching effectiveness as determined by student evaluators using a modified critical incident technique

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the effect of different instructions on student evaluator's responses of critically effective and ineffective instructor behavior. Of secondary concern was an attempt to determine the frequency and magnitude of student interaction with instructors outside the formal class meeting, as well as the relationship between such student-instructor interaction and the reporting of it as being critical. Two different sets of instructions were randomly distributed to 154 university undergraduates. 78 students in this sample received instructions written to provide a broader frame of reference for reporting examples of critical instructor behavior than the instructions the remaining 76 students received. In addition, all 154 students in the sample completed a three item questionnaire measuring specific aspects of student-Instruetor interaction. The obtained incidents were content analyzed according to a pre-existing classification system. Comparison was made between the results obtained from different sets of instructions in the present study, as well as between the present study and an earlier one. The distribution of responses to questionnaire items which indicated the level of importance assigned student-teacher interaction across certain subgroupings within the sample was computed. The following conclusions were made: (1) Instructions which provided a broader frame of reference elicited more behaviors concerning outside of class student-instructor interaction than did more specifically worded instructions. (2) A majority of students report student-instructor interaction outside of class to be desireable, while only a minority actually engage in such interaction. (3) Students who interact with instructors outside of class more frequently than the average are more likely to view such behavior as critical.