Perceptions of master of education students on evaluation of teaching : a study of the University of Hong Kong

Abstract

The student evaluation of teaching is a crucial method to evaluate the teaching effectiveness and widely used in most universities and colleges all over the world. There are large literatures related to the student evaluation of teaching. However, less research focused on the students and even the taught postgraduate students’ perceptions. As such, the purpose of the current study was to explore and understand the Master of Education students’ perceptions on the teaching evaluation. Specifically, this study set out to identify their expectations and motivations on the teaching evaluation. In total, 15 MEd students at the University of Hong Kong participated in individual interviews in an effort to identify their own opinions on the teaching evaluation including willingness, expectation and motivations, as well as the items of evaluation form. In doing so, the study revealed that most students were willing to do the evaluation, but they couldn’t get any follow up actions next. The motivations for them to rate teaching is that they believed the evaluations were meaningful and as a chance for them to express their personal ideas. Furthermore, the findings demonstrated that students’ evaluations were related to their expectation and personal feelings on the course and teachers.