Implicit Theories in Student Ratings

Abstract

Identifying generalizable dimensions of teaching from student ratings data has been both practically and theoretically important in the study of teaching. However, an examination of the methods employed reveals that many studies may have identified dimensions which were implicit in the student raters rather than the instructors. The current study compared various methods of identifying teaching factors and found substantive similarity of the dimensions defined from students’ implicit theories and various types of correlational data. The results are interpreted both with respect to the rating process and to the nature of the factors identified in previous student ratings research.