The Correlation between Teaching Evaluation and Lecturers’ Performances

Accepted Feb 22, 2020 The purpose of the study is to explore the relationship between teaching evaluation and lecturers’ performances. To achieve this purpose, the study analysed the correlations between teaching evaluation scores by student and evaluation on lecturers’ performances by dean, and between teaching evaluation scores by student and students’ final examination results. Census study was applied to collect all data, which involved 124 lecturers and eight deans. The study used data from the online system, which involved evaluation made for 246 courses by all active students in semester June – November 2018. Descriptive and inferential statistics were applied in this study and analysed using SPSS version 21.0. The result showed that there is no significant relationship between teaching evaluation scores by student and evaluation on lecturers’ performances by dean. This study also found that there is no significant relationship between teaching evaluation scores by student and students’ final examination results. Based on the findings, the study inferred there is bias in the evaluation instruments and there are external factors contributed to the outcome of insignificant correlations in both analyses, thus the effect or impact of the evaluation system to academic division is not significant


Introduction
Education system in Malaysia is bound with the quality assurance and controlled by the internal and external bodies of the institutions. One of the aspect in the quality assurance is the customer satisfaction; that is the perceptions of students towards the services provided for them. In this research context the service provided is knowledge transfer. Higher education institution had their own system in order to maintain the quality of the service provided and in the context of teaching and learning, evaluation system on lecturers is the measuring tools applied in most of the public and private institutions. Griffin (1999) and Liaw and Goh (2003) discovered the importance of the evaluations system when it is included in the key performances index for lecturers in staff appraisal and teaching effectiveness. Chan and Osman (2011) suggested that faculties may benefit the evaluation which might lead to fairer promoting, tenure and pay increase decisions for academic staffs.
There are many factors that will affect the evaluations scores. Chi, Shu and Yi (2017) discovered that the implementation of teaching evaluations will influence teachers to give good grades, they tend to lower their course requirements to please their students in order to get higher teaching evaluations. Helgesen and Nesset (2007) suggested that the lecturers' performances, as one of the important component in student evaluation, contributes to students' satisfaction; indirectly affects the image of the institution and the enrolment of students.
Evaluations can also be seen as a process of gathering information for the purpose of making judgements. In the context of teaching, evaluations is a tool to measure the effectiveness of teaching, as a tool to facilitate the rewarding of excellence, support decision making process about tenure and promotion and ensure accountability of academic staff (Chan and Osman, 2011).
This study is about the system of evaluations applied in the academic division of UCYP. Every semester all students need to evaluate their lecturers' teaching performances. Evaluation of lecturer are based on two criteria namely evaluation by respective dean and students' final examination scores. Researchers want to investigate if there exist any relationship between the evaluation tools applied and the lecturers' performances.
Since this evaluation tools implemented in academic system of UCYP, no study had been conducted to see the effect or impact of the evaluations. Researchers believed that these two evaluation tools are important to measure the quality of academic. Researchers want to investigate if the evaluations made on lecturers will affect the evaluations made by dean. Researchers also want to see if the evaluations on lecturer will affect the achievement of students in their final examination results.
In this study, researchers wish to achieve two objectives. The first objective is to determine the relationship between teaching evaluation scores by students and evaluation on lecturers' by dean. The second objective is to determine relationship between teaching evaluation scores by students and students' final examination results.

Literature Review
System of evaluation is one tool in quality assurance. In academic sector, students' evaluation on performance of their lecturers towards teaching is applied for years. Wachtel (1998) reported that the evaluation on teaching had started in 1915 and the first study on students' evaluation on the effectiveness of teaching was written in the 1920s. The measure on the effectiveness of teaching will reflect on qualities of good teaching such as lecturers' knowledge, classroom management, commitment to class and students and relationship between students and lecturers. However, the evaluation on lecturer should not only depend on one stakeholder only. For future improvement, it is important for an institution to have a good system of evaluation. Information from all stakeholders should be considered to promise the quality in teaching and learning process. This is because according to Bembenutty (2009) who studied the effectiveness of teaching, evaluation on lecturers can be biased due to factors such as students' interest in the course, their expectations for good grades, student factors and course personality. In fact, he said, a highly rated professor is also probably the most unprofessional person in his teaching.
There are many studies explored the relationship between the students' evaluation on lecturers and the lecturers' performances. The evaluations system is a part of customer satisfactory factor especially in field of service provider. In education system context, the customer is referring to the student. They are the receiver in the process of transferring knowledge. Their perceptions towards the services provided were obtained through questionnaire in which they should give scores for five elements in the survey. This is supported by Hansen and Jackson (1996) who agreed the important role that the students play in the teaching and learning process. However, Chye and Meng (1997) reported that in some studies, the students' evaluation does not exclusively depend on the effectiveness of the teaching and learning process and the lecturers' behavior. Oryn and Ryan (2001) suggested that students' evaluation should not be used alone because it would not provide sufficient reliability. It should be combined with data collected from other sources such as classroom observations and self-evaluations. Supported by Evrim and Seda (2012), who said that students' evaluation should not be the only evaluation used, it can be used together with the faculty personnel decisions such as appraisal system.
A Job performance is the ability to execute tasks and produce outcomes. Smith (1982) suggests that a performance is outputs that drive from processes, human or otherwise. Thus, an evaluation towards lecturers' performances is important to measure the effectiveness of knowledge transferring process. Evrim and Seda (2012) found a significant relationship between students and coordinators evaluations on teachers using their instrument i.e Students Evaluation on Teaching (SET).
Many researches explored the relationship between the students' examination results and the teaching evaluation scores. Sauer (2012) who investigated the relationship between teaching evaluation scores and course grades found that teaching evaluation score was a significant predictor of student's course grade. Hoefer, Yurkiewicz and Byrne (2012) in their study also found the existence of relationship between the teaching evaluation scores and their students' grades. A positive significant relationship between course grades and teaching evaluation scores was found in Brockx, Spooren and Mortelmans (2011). Griffin, Hilton and Barret (2014) in their paper found that, the examination results (expressed in grade point average GPA) and teaching evaluation scores were moderately correlated. However, Alexander (2016) in his thesis did not found any statistically significant relationship between teachers' evaluation ratings and students' achievement in mathematics or reading scores.
In the analysis part below, this study analysed two research hypotheses: H 1 : There is a significant relationship between teaching evaluation scores by student and evaluation on lecturers' performances by dean.
H 2 : There is a significant relationship between teaching evaluation scores by student and students' final examination results.

Sampling
This research was conducted at University College of Yayasan Pahang (UCYP), located in Kuantan, Pahang. UCYP consists of eight faculties and currently offered 11 home grown programs and 4 franchise programs at diploma level. The data involved in this study were taken from semester June -November 2018. To answer two hypotheses, researcher design the sampling as follows.
For hypothesis 1, there are 124 lecturers at UCYP. However, due to some limitations, the data obtained only for 113 lecturers. The teaching evaluation scores by student for 113 lecturers are obtained. The evaluation on lecturers' performances by dean for respective lecturers' are also obtained to answer the hypothesis 1.
Meanwhile, to answer hypothesis 2, researcher obtained the teaching evaluation scores by student for 246 courses. Later, researcher gather 246 students' final examination results, respective to the teaching evaluation scores by student gathered earlier.

Measurement of Variable
Evaluation by students will go through the following process for every semester. Students will fill in the online evaluation form, known as Lecturers' Evaluation (by Students) between week 4 to week 14 in current semester. The process of the evaluation is done independently by students without any monitoring from the faculties. Students must filled in evaluations for every course registered for current semester. It is compulsory for students to complete this online evaluation in order to print out students' examination slip. This examination slip is the requirement for the students to sit final examination.
The Lecturers' Evaluation (by Students) form contained twenty questions. It is divided into five parts: personality, preparation, teaching delivery, communication with students and commitment towards teaching. This questionnaire used five-point Likert scale to investigate students' opinion regarding the lecturers assigned to them for all courses enrolled for that particular semester. The scores obtained from the questionnaires were viewed as teaching evaluation scores by student in this study. Every semester, the minimum teaching hours for a lecturer is twenty hours per week. A lecturer may teach more than one course and a course may consist more than one group of students. Researchers took the average scores for this evaluation and recorded the data as the independent variable for each lecturer.
The second instrument for the evaluation process is evaluation by dean who is the immediate superior to lecturer. The form consists of twenty questions in six categories: teaching commitment, ISO (International Organization for Standardization) procedures, relationship with deans, obligation to UCYP, creativity and attendance. Evaluation uses five-point Likert scale. The total scores from the twenty questions is the Lecturers' Performance Scores by Dean in this study. During the semester, dean will observe the teaching of the lecturer by entering into one of the classes and the score for teaching commitment category shall be given. As for the other five categories, scores will be given according to the performances of the lecturers throughout semester June -November 2018.
Besides two evaluations above, the third data source is students' final examination results. The results obtained by the student were viewed as the final examination results. For record, there were 246 courses offered in semester June -November 2018.

Data Analysis
Researchers employed quantitative data analysis to analyse the findings. All data obtained will be processed using SPSS version 21.0. Descriptive statistics were used to show the minimum, maximum, mean and standard deviation for each evaluation. Inferential statistics were used to analyse data from teaching evaluation scores by students, lecturers' performances scores by dean and students' final examination results. The correlational analysis was used to examine the relationship between the teaching evaluation scores by student and lecturers' performances scores by dean, and between teaching evaluation scores by student and students' final examination results. Results and discussion are presented in the following sections.

Teaching Evaluation Scores by Student towards Lecturers' Performance Scores by Dean
The results in Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics of teaching evaluation scores by student and lecturers' performance scores by dean. For teaching evaluation scores by student, among 113 lecturers, the minimum score is 70 while the maximum score is 98. Mean score for this evaluation is 86.36 and deviated 5.124 units from the mean. For lecturers' performance scores by dean, the lowest score is 68 while the highest score recorded is 96. For this evaluation, it gives a mean of 84.47 with standard deviation of 7.154. For hypothesis 1, the teaching evaluation scores by student and lecturers' performance scores by dean were not correlated (r=.172, p>0.05).

Teaching Evaluation Scores by Student towards Students' Final Examination Results
The results in Table 2 shows the descriptive statistics of teaching evaluation scores by students for all 246 courses offered throughout the semester and its corresponding final examination results. For teaching evaluation scores by student, among 246 courses, the minimum score is 68 while the maximum score is 100. Mean score for this evaluation is 86.05 and deviated 6.158 units from the mean. For students' final examination results, the lowest score is 41 while the highest score recorded is 85. For this evaluation, it gives a mean of 66.56 with standard deviation of 9.266. For hypothesis 2, the teaching evaluation scores by students was also not correlated (r=.125, p>0.05) with the students' final examination results.

Discussion
The purpose of the study is to explore the relationship between teaching evaluation scores and lecturers' performances scores. We examined whether the teaching evaluation scores by students on their lecturers will affect the lecturers' performances scores by respective deans. We also examined if the evaluation scores by students on their lecturers will affect students' achievements through their final examination results. To achieve these purposes, we analysed the correlation between teaching evaluation scores by student and lecturers' performance scores by dean, and between teaching evaluation scores by student and students' final examination results.
The first hypothesis: there is a significant relationship between teaching evaluation scores by student and evaluation on lecturers' performances by dean, showed that p>0.05. This indicated that there is no significant correlation between teaching evaluation scores by student and lecturers' performance scores by dean. This result contradicts the finding from Evrim and Seda (2012) that stated a significant relationship between students and coordinators evaluations on teachers.
For the second hypothesis: there is a significant relationship between teaching evaluation scores by student and students' final examination results. The result, p>0.05 indicated that there is no significant relationship between the teaching evaluation scores by student and students' final examination results. This finding is supported by Kimball et al (2009) who conducted research on correlation using three different grades of classes. His finding was only one grade showed the significant correlation while the other two grades were not significantly correlated. Spooren (2012) also reported that several authors, Brockx, Spooren and Mortelmans (2011), Feldman (1997), Marsh (2007 and Spooren (2010) suggested a moderately significant correlation between course grade and student scores on teaching.

Conclusion
Based on the findings, researchers believed the insignificant relationship between teaching evaluation scores by student and evaluation on lecturers' performances by dean resulted from the biasness in the evaluation instruments: the teaching evaluation scores by student is obtained from the assessment on teaching and learning process, including personality, preparation, teaching delivery, communication with students and commitment towards teaching. However, lecturers' performances scores by dean were evaluated on different criteria: teaching commitment, ISO (International Organization for Standardization) procedures, relationship with deans, obligation to UCYP, creativity and attendance which not only focus in teaching but also the commitment with their work and overall performances in the institution. It is found that necessary for both instruments to use the same criteria so that the relationship between the two instruments can be explored, to determine if there exist a significant relationship.
The insignificant relationship between teaching evaluation scores by student and students' final examination results suggested that, evaluation scores made on lecturers did not promised a good return in terms of final examination results. The process of evaluation by student on their lecturers did not reflect on the students' achievement because the lecturer did not know his or her evaluation score. The scores only gathered every semester by dean without reporting to respective lecturer. Thus the lecturer did not have any feedback and what are their students' perception towards their teaching. Feedback seems to be important for improvement of every lecturer during semester commence or before new semester begin. This is important so that prompt action can be taken to ensure the process of teaching and learning run smoothly and students can achieve good results. For non-conformance lecturer, corrective and preventive action should be taken without prejudice to the students' future.

Limitation
This study has several limitations. Researchers believe that there are several possible factors to explain the outcome of insignificant correlations in both analyses. One possible factor is language barrier faced by students. Students who are from rural areas, poor in English language may have difficulty in understanding the evaluation tools that is prepared using English language. Another possible factor is the way evaluation process is conducted. Students carried out the evaluations without monitoring, may not understood the objective of the evaluations. The third possible factor is the online evaluation system is by default set at a particular value.

Recommendation
For future research, to counter the above three factors, the evaluation should be carried out in two languages (Bahasa Melayu and English language), objective of the evaluation properly explained and the online system should not set at any point by default. Future research shall have experimental and control groups for better improvement in the finding. Future research can take into consideration of the maturity of students by comparing their status (semester enrolled). This is also supported by Spooren (2012) who agreed that mature students are more likely to participate in course evaluation surveys. This might be due to the fact that they are more familiar and more involved with systems of quality assurance in higher education. By furthering this study, researchers believed that the evaluation system could be more reliable and meaningful in the teaching and learning process.