24. Developing and Validating an Instrument for Student Ratings of Teaching

In May 2007, the Thompson Rivers University Faculty of Science established an ad hoc subcommittee to develop a new student ratings of teaching survey. The final survey, approved by the Faculty in February 2011, includes statements categorized in the dimensions of teaching shown in previous studies to be correlated with student achievement. The survey is learner-centred, discipline and pedagogically neutral, and includes only items that can be reasonably evaluated by students. The survey consists of 40 items including eight statements of student background information, 32 statements to rate on a six-point Likert scale, and four open-ended questions. We demonstrated that a faculty group with no formal training in survey design and informed by the literature, can, in collaboration with faculty, develop a survey established as having a high degree of inter-rater reliability.