Student Course Evaluations: Association with Pre-Course Attitudes and Comparison of Business Courses in Social Science and Quantitative Topics

As instructors we often sense that students come to our courses with pre-conceived notions about the course, possibly influenced by normative views of members of the larger campus community (Heise, 1979, 2002). Results of prior research have shown student attitudes toward a course before the start of the semester affect student course evaluations (Barke, Tollefson & Tracy, 1983). Barke, et al., (1983) used a 52 item Affective Entry Questionnaire as a pre-test at the start of the semester to survey 789 students in courses led by 65 instructors. A sample questions was "I will probably find this course boring. " The 48-item post-test Course Evaluation Form was given during the last week of the semester. Regression analysis showed evaluation sub-scales were related to the pretest, including Course Difficulty ([R.sup.2] = 45, p A few studies have addressed similar topics. In a recent factor analysis approach to student evaluations, prior "interest in the subject matter" was shown to have a significant impact on the overall course ratings (Barth, 2008). Two studies addressed the effect of student precourse expectations on subsequent course evaluations (Gigliotti, 1987; Koermer & Petelle, 1991). These significant associations with student evaluations included expected relevance and expected stimulation and communications as types of interaction in a course. Additionally, researchers have examined antecedents of instructor evaluations: instructor reputation before encounters with the instructor were compared to impressions formed early in the course (Babad, Kaplowitz & Darley, 1999; Buchert, Laws, Apperson & Bregman, 2008; Laws, Apperson, Buchert & Bregman, 2010). Findings indicated that first impressions in actual encounters with professors correlated with evaluations of the instructor at the end of the semester. However, pre-course attitudes of instructor reputations did not persist through the end of the semester. This is inconsistent with research on course evaluations, suggesting differences between evaluations of an instructor versus evaluation of a course. Research also shows student ratings of courses vary significantly by field of study (Cashin, 1990), suggesting the presence of normative attitudes toward various disciplines on a campus. Information from two large databases (Student Instructional Report from the Educational Testing Service and the Instructional Development and Effectiveness Assessment) comprised the variables in the study. The sample consisted of responses from students in over 100,000 undergraduate classes in 45 disciplines located at hundreds of institutions. Cashin (1990) found students rated the management field low for instructor and course effectiveness in contrast to higher ratings for courses in the "hard sciences" such as physics. Biglan (1973) provided insight on distinguishing between academic fields with three dimensions to classify specific courses. For example, "hard" versus "soft" addresses the extent of competing theories within a field; "pure" versus "applied" considers the practical application of a field; and the third dimension is whether a field is concerned with living objects or not. Related to this topic is a study which found student perceptions of course relevance at the second class meeting were lower for an organizational behavior course as a "social science" (refers to psychology at work) compared to perceptions of a computing course (Burke & Moore, 2003). These results suggest two antecedents impact student course evaluations: pre-course attitudes and discipline of the course. The purpose of this study is to examine pre-course attitudes to determine if they are persistent across time. That is, are pre-course attitudes related to student evaluations? I also investigated attitudes and course evaluations by course discipline. To understand the effects of attitudes on course evaluation behaviors, I looked to Affect Control Theory (ACT; Heise, 1979, 2002) as a model that proposes attitudes are persistent across time and influence behavior. …