چکیده (انگلیسی):

This study has identified two important factors, unrelated to an instructor’s teaching ability, which
can affect an instructor’s teaching evaluations. The first factor, which has never been examined in
any prior studies, is the section effect. This study finds that teaching evaluations differ significantly
across sections of the same course taught by the same instructor. This section effect cannot be
explained by six student-related variables. The second factor, which is students’ pre-course interest
measured at the beginning of a course, is found to be positively related to teaching evaluations.
These findings suggest that higher-education administrators may want to consider the section effect
and the students’ pre-course interest when they evaluate aninstructor’s teaching effectiveness for
promotion, tenure and merit decisions