Students' Initial Impressions of Teaching Effectiveness: An Analysis of Structured Response Items.

Because an instructor's first interaction with students on the first day of class can determine the success of those to follow, it is important to explore what happens in a classroom setting before offering prescriptions on how to best handle situations in that setting. To understand how students' responses to specific attributes related to instructional style are linked to global evaluations of teaching effectiveness, six research questions were formulated. Participants were 800 students at the University of Illinois--125 were freshmen, 434 were sophomores, 140 were juniors, 79 were seniors, 8 were graduate students, and 14 did not indicate their rank. Data were collected in 29 sections of three 100-level courses in three different subjects. To gather reactions to the first day of class, a multi-part survey was developed. The section of the questionnaire that provided primary data for analyses consisted of 22 five-point Likert Scale items. Findings suggest that the most important element of instructional effectiveness on the first day of class is communicative competence. Since the first day of class is a day where students begin to develop an instructional relationship with their teacher, it appears they are looking for communicative competence to reassure them that their instructor has attributes that will enable them to succeed in the course. Demographic and attitude elements such as a student's year in school, an instructor's gender, prior student motivation, and even course type do appear to play some role in how a student evaluates an instructor on the first day. (Contains 25 references and 9 tables.) (NKA)