The relationship between university teachers' self-evaluation of online teaching and their background: based on the survey of 334 Chinese universities

Abstract

PurposeThis paper aims to take Chinese university teachers as the research objects to examine their self-evaluation of online teaching and analyze the main factors influencing their evaluation during COVID-19.Design/methodology/approachAccording to the theory of educational ecology, the factors influencing teachers' self-evaluation of online teaching in this paper include university background, courses background and teachers' personal background from the macro- to micro-levels. Through exploratory factor analysis, independent sample T-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), the self-evaluation of online teaching of 13,997 teachers from 334 universities and their relationship with teachers' background have been subject to data statistics and analysis.FindingsTeachers' self-evaluation of online teaching mainly includes three dimensions: online teaching methods, online teacher–student interaction and online teaching techniques. There are significant differences in these three dimensions among teachers with different background characteristics, including regions, the types of universities, the nature of universities in macro background levels, the types and numbers of online courses in meso background levels, and the gender, years of teaching, professional titles and disciplines in micro background levels.Practical implicationsTo improve teachers' self-evaluation of online teaching, it is suggested to build an online teaching self-evaluation system for teachers, strengthen university support and guarantee, strengthen online teaching training and improve the information accomplishments of teachers.Originality/valueThis large-scale empirical survey of online teaching evaluation of Chinese teachers can provide scholars with a deeper understanding of the implementation of online teaching in China and the self-evaluation of online teaching by teachers.