Students' Ratings of Instructors Revisited: Interactions among Class and Instructor Variables

Previous studies concerning students' ratings of instruction have traditionally used the class as the unit of analysis and the ratings have been analyzed in one of two ways: (1) regression analysis, wherein the amount of variability in instructor ratings can be attributed to a set of variables; or (2) analysis of variance, wherein the effect of some selected independent variable on instructor ratings is measured. While both approaches have provided valuable information about the evaluation of instruction, little attention has been given to the interactions among the variables selected. In order to determine how situational variables influence the student at the time an evaluation is performed, the present study used the individual student as the unit of analysis and focused principally on the interactions between three variables related to the class (type, level, and size) and three variables related to the instructor (reputation, rank, and sex). The data were analyzed through 15 two-way factorial analyses of variance, with 23 main effects and 12 interactions reaching significance. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of their effect on the student rating process.