Can students discriminate traits associated with success in teaching?

Abstract

The Purdue Rating Scale for instructors was used to determine (1) the extent to which students agree as to the relative importance of the ten traits on the scale, and (2) the extent to which they discriminate among the various traits. Students in 3 classes, totalling 87, were asked to rate the ten traits in order of importance. Each class was divided into random halves and the ratings of the two halves were correlated. High agreement was shown by correlation ratios of .85, .90 and .91. Discrimination was tested by having 94 students rate one instructor. The correlation between the ratings on each pair of traits was calculated. The average of the correlations uncorrected was 0.366, which rose to 0.435 when corrected for attenuation. Since a moderate amount of objective correlation was to be expected, these figures were taken to indicate high discrimination or freedom from "halo effects." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)