Can Student Ratings of Teaching be Predicted by Teaching Styles?

Abstract

The relationship between teaching styles and student ratings of teaching was examined at a Chinese university. 388 teachers (170 men, 218 women) were invited to fill out the 49-item Teaching Styles Inventory (Grigorenko & Sternberg, 1993). The inventory measures seven teaching styles: legislative, judicial, liberal, global, executive, conservative, and local. Scores from students' evaluations of teaching of courses for one semester were collected. Students' evaluation scores were significantly and negatively related to executive and conservative teaching styles of their teachers, while no significant correlation was found between student ratings and any of the other five teaching styles. Only conservative teaching style contributed significantly to the prediction of student ratings. Sex and age were found to have moderating effects on the relationship between teaching style and student ratings. The role of teaching styles in student ratings was discussed.