Students’ comments about university teaching: which links with effectiveness models?

Abstract

This article presents the results of the thematic content analysis of 550 comments written by students as part of the student evaluation of instruction at the University of Mons. It also seeks to establish a link between the characteristics of the effective teacher as seen by students and a review of the literature on, firstly, effective teaching at the primary and secondary education, and secondly, student evaluation of instruction in higher education. The results indicate that students’ comments relate to the teacher’s instruction and class management twice as commonly as to their personal characteristics (e.g. sense of humour).