Student Perception of Course and Teacher Quality: A Comprehensive Cluster Analysis

End-of-term course evaluations often use multiple-choice questions asking students to evaluate their experience with the class. Students are also asked to give an overall score to the instructor and to the course. To help instructors interpret the scores and work to improve their evaluations, we looked at 16 descriptive statements in 2,048 evaluations of course sections over a span of 4 years. Cluster analyses revealed that the course score related the most to Cluster 2 statements (feedback and challenge) and the instructor score to Cluster 4 statements (clear and stimulating presentations). We then analysed these specific clusters in more detail to provide specific recommendations to faculty on how to improve their student evaluation of teaching scores using this output. Overall, our study revealed several critical benefits of student evaluations of teaching effectiveness. Key findings include: (a) clear and informative teaching helps decrease student stress; (b) encouraging students to set and achieve challenging goals promotes personal and academic growth, and the fact that (c) students want to feel challenged, so they can grow. We discuss the implications of our findings and offer suggestions for future research.