Designing Rating Scales to Evaluate Teaching Effectiveness

What is the quality of the instruments you now use at your college to evaluate teaching? You’re not alone. The problem is that flawed, inappropriate, and insensitive items or incorrectly structured scales measuring an instructor’s classroom behaviors are all too common in academia. They can result in poor and biased ratings of faculty and unfair and inequitable decisions about contract renewal, merit pay, and promotion. Faculty careers are on the line. Whether you need to select, adapt, critique, or write items for a rating scale, you should know the criteria for quality items.

This workshop covers (1) the step-by-step procedures for constructing rating scales; (2) the most common mistakes in item writing; (3) applying rules to the scales you are now using; (4) the different anchor structures you could use and the rules to determine the number and format of anchors; (5) applying anchor options to your scales; (6) the steps for assembling a scale into a form ready for administration; and (7) applying steps to your scales so they are ready to blast off.

The scales brought into the workshop should be significantly improved so they can be brought before the entire faculty. Further, workshop participants gain the scale construction skills necessary to spearhead other evaluation projects, such as peer observation, self-ratings, alumni ratings, and student interviews. There is also time devoted to technical issues, including reliability, validity, and scale score interpretation. This is a workshop you can’t afford to miss.

This topic is available as a 3-hour workshop.

To find out more, email Ed Leach or call (480) 705-8200, x233.