Marketing Students’ Perceptions of Teaching Evaluations: An Application of Expectancy Theory

This study employs expectancy theory to evaluate some key factors that motivate students to participate in the teaching evaluation process. The results show that students generally consider the improvement of teaching to be the most important outcome of teaching evaluations, followed by the improvement of course content and format. Influencing a professor's tenure, promotion, and salary raise ranked third, while the least important use was making the results of evaluations available for students’ decisions on course and instructor selection. Students’ motivation to participate in teaching evaluations is also impacted significantly by their expectation that they will be able to provide meaningful feedback.