Student Ratings of Teaching Effectiveness: An Importance - Performance Analysis (IPA)

Abstract

The aims of this study were to identify effective teaching attributes using the Students’ Evaluation of Educational Quality (SEEQ) questionnaire and evaluate students’ level of satisfaction using the Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) technique. Data were collected from three groups of students enrolled in three different courses i.e. Business Ethics (BE), Business Presentation Skills (BPS) and Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) at a Malaysian polytechnic. The total number of students involved were sixty seven and each course was taught by a different lecturer. A shorter version of the SEEQ questionnaire (22 items) was used to assess the teaching attributes according to students’ perceived satisfaction and importance. A five-point Likert-type scale ranging from “very dissatisfied” to “very satisfied” was used to measure students’ perceived satisfaction. Similarly, a five-point Likert-type scale ranging from “not important at all” to “very important” was used to measure students’ perceived importance. By plotting the importance-performance rating of each lecturer in the four quadrants of the Importance-Performance Matrix, for the BE course, gaps were found in nine attributes related to motivational and pedagogical factors. Similarly, gaps were also found for BPS and IMC courses where these gaps were related to instructor’s friendliness, accessibility and instructor-student interaction. For all three courses, students were satisfied with the given assignments which they agreed facilitated their learning. The majority of the students also expressed satisfaction on the lecturers’ knowledge of the courses. The findings of this study have identified the less satisfactory teaching attributes and these could be used to modify teaching strategies to enhance students’ learning. Thus it is recommended that Malaysian polytechnics use the dual approach i.e. the SEEQ questionnaire and the IPA technique to assess teaching effectiveness.

DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2016.v6n3p33