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A new approach to evaluation of university teaching considering heterogeneity of students’ preferences

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Abstract

Students’ evaluations of teaching are increasingly used by universities to evaluate teaching performance. However, these evaluations are controversial mainly due to fact that students value various aspects of excellent teaching differently. Therefore, in this paper we propose a new approach to students’ evaluations of university teaching based on data from conjoint analysis. Conjoint analysis is a multivariate technique used to analyze the structure of individuals’ preference. In particular, our approach accounts for different importance students attach to various aspects of teaching. Moreover, it accounts explicitly for heterogeneity arising from students’ preferences, and incorporates it to form comprehensive teaching evaluation score. We have conducted survey and confirmed applicability and efficiency of the proposed approach.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Organizational Sciences, University of Belgrade, Jove Ilica 154, 11000, Belgrade, Serbia

    Marija Kuzmanovic, Gordana Savic, Milena Popovic & Milan Martic

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  1. Marija Kuzmanovic
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  2. Gordana Savic
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  3. Milena Popovic
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  4. Milan Martic
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Correspondence to Marija Kuzmanovic.

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Kuzmanovic, M., Savic, G., Popovic, M. et al. A new approach to evaluation of university teaching considering heterogeneity of students’ preferences. High Educ 66, 153–171 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-012-9596-2

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