In this study, the researcher try to explore how teachers’ factors, classes’ factors, as well as students’ factors relate to Students’ Evaluations of Teaching (SET).  In most countries, universities have applied various ways to evaluate teachers’ teaching worldwide to improve the qualities of college teaching (Pike, 1998; Shirk & Miller, 1994).  Students’ Evaluations of Teaching (SET) have been the major index for evaluating the teaching qualities at many universities worldwide (Chang, 2003).  Especially for some international accredited academic programs, such AACSB, SET play an important part to represent the qualities of the curriculum (Badri, Abdulla, Kamali, & Dodeen, 2006).  In Taiwan, the Minister of Education demands all of the funded universities have to applied some kind of teacher evaluation system to ensure the teaching qualities.  As a result, SET plays the key role in evaluating teachers’ academic performances while reviewing for promotion or even the tenure track.

As the increasing importance of SET, some college teachers queried if the results of SET reflected teaching qualities and concerned if there were any other factors that could have effects on the result of SET.  Some researchers found that teachers’ grading leniency might have effects on SET (Badri, Abdulla, Kamali, & Dodeen, 2006; Ellis, Burke, Lomire, & McCormack, 2003; Griffin, 2004).  Lu & Wu (2008) found that although grading leniency, class size and the failing rate could contribute significantly to the result of SET, but could only explained about 10% of the variances.  In most cases, grading leniency were confounded with teaching effectiveness, that the better teaching quality should result in high students’ performance.  It is hard to clarify the higher class average scores reflect teachers’ grading leniency or students’ performances without the joined exam to compared students of different classes.

At the university of this research, there are 90 classes of Freshmen English Course of similar class size (around 22-30 students each class), and all of the students have to take 2 joined exam each semester.  In this research, the researcher will explore how teachers and students’ factors could have effects on the results of SET’s of the freshmen’ English Course.  Hierarchical linear model (HLM, Hox, 1995) will be applied to explore the effects of different level of factors.  Students’ factors are at the personal level, which include students’ genders and students’ final scores at the course.  Teachers’   factors are at the group level which include teachers’ gender, grading leniency, employment status (full-time or part-time). 

Badri, M. A., Abdulla, M., Kamali, M. A. & Dodeen, H. (2006). Identifying potential biasing variables in student evaluation of teaching in a newly accredited business program in the UAE. International Journal of Educational Management, 20 (1), 43-59. Chang, T.-S. (2003). Results of student ratings: Does faculty attitude matter? Bulletin of Educational Psychology, 35 (2), 183-200. Ellis, L., Burke, D., Lomire, P., & McCormack, D. (2003). Student Grades and Average Ratings of Instructional Quality: The Need for Adjustment. Journal of Educational Research, 97(1), 35-40. Griffin, B. (2004). Grading leniency, grade discrepancy, and student ratings of instruction. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 29(4), 410-425. Pike, C. K. (1998). A Validation Study of an Instrument Designed to Measure Teaching Effectiveness. Journal of Social Work Education, 34, 261-272.