Behaviorally anchored scales for assessing behavioral science teaching

Attempted to (a) identify critical behavioral dimensions associated with teaching behavioral science courses at the university level, (b) develop a set of behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS) to assess these dimensions, and (c) make a psychometric comparison of the BARS with the Student Instructional Report (SIR), a measure of student perceptions of teacher performance. Based on data obtained from 381 graduate and undergraduate students, BARS had less skewness, lower intercorrelation of ratings on various behavioral dimensions, and lower variability in ratings than the SIR. Content validity and latent factor structure of the new instrument are also reported. (French summary) (18 ref)