Assessing Student Motivation to Participate in Teaching Evaluations: An Application to Expectancy Theory.

The literature suggests that most universities in North America use student ratings of instruction as part of their evaluation of teaching effectiveness. Consequently, the active participation and meaningful input of students are critical factors in the success of such teaching evaluation systems. However, very few studies have looked into students' perception of the teaching evaluation system and their motivation to participate. This study employs expectancy theory to evaluate some key factors that may motivate students to participate in the teaching evaluation process. This study found that students generally considered the improvement of teaching to be the most attractive outcome of a teaching evaluation system. Two other important uses of teaching evaluations were improving course content and format as well as making the results of evaluations available for students' decisions on course and instructor selection. The least important use of teaching evaluations, from the students' standpoint, is for the professor's tenure, promotion and salary raise decisions. Students' motivation to participate in teaching evaluations is also affected significantly by their expectation that they will be able to provide meaningful feedback. Since quality student input is an essential antecedent of meaningful student evaluations of teaching effectiveness, the results of this study should be considered thoughtfully as the evaluation system is designed, implemented and operated.