Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

6-1976

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Major

Curriculum and Instruction

Major Professor

A. Paul Wishart

Abstract

The primary purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of three student characteristics on student ratings of instruction in biology courses at the college level. The variables were the students' theoretical orientation, attitude toward biology, background in high school chemistry courses and the course instructor. Other purposes of the study were: (1) to learn more about the extent to which students report accurately such information as their cumulative grade point average, sex, and.class level; (2) to determine relationships between students' ratings of instruction and their reactions to class size, class work load, and difficulty of the course; (3) to examine the relationship between a students' perceived progress (expected grade) and his actual progress (assigned grade); (4) to attempt a validity study of the student instructional report (SIR) by analyzing the relationships between the student:'s ratings on 20 specific performance items and the students' global (general) rating of instructional performance, and to. determine the relationship between the students' achievement and their rating of instruction; (5) to determine the influence of students' attitude toward biology on their achievement in a biology course and on their perception of the difficulty of the course; and (6) to determine the relationship of the students' theoretical orientation and the way students' perceived the course difficulty. The basic population for the study was comprised of 374 students enrolled in the third quarter of Freshman Biology classes at East Tennessee State University in the Spring Quarter 1975. The results of the study indicated that: (1) students with a more positive attitude toward biology gave significantly higher ratings than those with a less positive (i.e., negative) attitude toward biology; (2) students with a high theoretical orientation gave significantly higher ratings than those with a low theoretical orientation; (3) students who included chemistry in their high school program gave similar ratings to those who did not include chemistry in their high school program; (4) students differentiated among their biology instructors' performances; (5) students reported with a high degree of accuracy such information as their GPA, sex, and class level; (6) expected grades of students had virtually no influence on ratings of instructional performance; (7) the grades students expected corresponded closely to the grades assigned by the instructor; (8) there was a weak relationship between students' achievement in a biology course and the ratings of their biology instructors' performance on 20 specific performance items and the students' general ratings of their biology instructors' performance; (10) the reactions of students to class size, work load in the class, and course difficulty influenced the ratings of their biology instructors' performance. Students who thought class size was too large gave the highest ratings; those who said class size "didn't matter" gave the lowest ratings. Students who perceived the work load as much heavier than in other courses gave much lower ratings than did students who perceived the work load as being "about right." Students who perceived the work load as much lighter than in other courses gave the highest ratings. Students who thought the difficulty of the course was very elementary or very difficult gave significantly lower ratings than those who perceived the course difficulty as "about right." Students who had a positive attitude toward biology achieved on a higher level than those who had a negative attitude toward biology. Also, students with a positive attitude perceived the course as less difficult than did students who had a negative attitude. Students with a high theoretical orientation thought the course less difficult than students who had a low theoretical orientation.

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