Nurse educators at the undergraduate level spend significant time developing and revising exam questions. Following the exam administration, course faculty have the opportunity to complete an item analysis and question revision to improve reliability and validity. A challenge faculty face is tracking these exam changes when teaching as part of a…

A five-year curriculum evaluation project is described that treated students' course ratings, examination reliability coefficients, and item-discrimination data as a battery of data points for determining annual revision efforts. Histograms were constructed to make valid demonstrations of successful efforts immediately comprehensible to faculty.…

This article illustrates the application of the Echo approach, originally designed to identify values of different cultures and subcultures, to the generation of questionnaire items for students to evaluate faculty teaching performance. Students preferred items generated using the Echo method over faculty-designed items and items developed by…

The authors describe the significant contributions of Robert Ebel to educational measurement theory and its applications. A biographical sketch details Ebel's roots and professional resume. His influence on classroom assessment views and procedures are explored. Classic publications associated with validity, reliability, and score interpretation…

Describes development and use of the Course Experience Questionnaire to measure perceived teaching quality in higher education, and construction of a new generic teaching skills scale. Evaluation with large multidisciplinary samples in Australia confirmed reliability and validity of both short and long forms. Criterion and discriminant validity…

Sources of bias in students' ratings of college faculty raise questions about the use of these ratings in making personnel decisions that affect the teacher's professional career. Student ratings should be only one component of the evidence collected to evaluate the effectiveness of college faculty. (PP)

A taxonomy of potential values conflicts in evaluations is presented. Basis is the distinction of types of conflict (aims vs. means conflicts; qualitative vs. quantitative conflicts). Six areas of values are discussed: the ethical, methodical, social and interactive, legal, economic, and personal values. The taxonomy of conflicts between these…