Journal of Educational Sciences > Volume 8, No. 1, 1996

The Attitudes of Faculty Members of the College of Education at King Saud University towards Students' Evaluation of Instructional Activities / Abdulaziz M. Albawardi

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions and attitudes of the faculty members in the College of Education. King Saud University, towards the students' evaluation of instructional activities. Primarily, the investigator attempted to determine if this group has positive or negative attitudes, and the effects of some variables on these attitudes.
To achieve this purpose. a questionnaire was designed and administered to the total population of this study which consisted of the faculty members in the College of Education. A total of (95) questionnaires were returned and statistically analyzed. The percentages, mean weights and discrepancy indices were computed for each item using ANOVA and t-Test Statistical packages.
Regarding the attitudes of the faculty members, the results revealed that most of the faculty members have neutral attitudes toward the evaluation of the faculty members by their students. In regard to the effects of the variables on the attitudes, the findings pointed out that age, teaching experience, administration experience do not have an influence on the attitude of faculty members toward the students' evaluation of the instructors. Only nationality, years of teaching, academic rank, source of degree certification, experience in evaluation before getting the degree, and after graduation during teaching, were influential factors, and showed some effect on the attitudes toward the evaluation ofthe faculty members by the students. In the light of these results, some recommendations are presented in the paper for using and implementing the courses and instructor evaluation by the students. The most important recommendations are:
1. Information provided by the students should be kept confidential so that neither the instructor nor the students would feel threatened by its use.
2. The results of students' evaluations should be available to the instructors early enough in the next semester so that instructional decisions may be made on the basis of the results.