Principles for Analyzing and Communicating Student Ratings of Teaching

Students' rating of teaching is widely used by university administrators to manage and evaluate teaching in China today. However, it is worthwhile to discuss and rethink carefully how to use this tool. Fifty students majoring in seven-year clinical medicine were asked to rate the class teaching of an integrated course for which the teaching reform involved compressed total class hours. The rating choices were very good, good, medium, and bad. A routine, simple statistical analysis was performed. Most students approved the integrated course and rated it as good. Constructive suggestions on how to improve teaching quality in the class revealed a standard normal distribution. Some students displayed the phenomenon of "comment fatigue." Several ways to use students' rating of teaching most efficiently were recommended to improve class teaching quality.