Students’ perspective on higher educators: interpersonal relationship matters

Students’ perspective on the higher educators’ performance matters because the ultimate goal of teaching is education quality and students’ satisfaction. Student evaluations are important to university professors to improve their teaching quality and in many cases, secure their promotion and tenureship. Excellent teaching does not have a universal definition, and students often have different perspectives on effective and excellent teaching. In this study, we examined the factors contributing to excellent teaching as rated by students on the website ratemyprofessors.com, a popular website among students to rate their educators voluntarily. The information from this website can be valuable, despite all the critics it has received, given that students provide feedback on a volunteer basis to help their peers with selecting the best class. The website provides a forum for opinions that are not influenced by fear of possible consequences, such as a low grade or tension with faculty. Our study results show that the five top characteristics that are important to students include being caring, respectful, inspirational, as well as giving good feedback, and delivering “amazing” lectures. Further data analysis shows that subject content, in terms of manageable workload, reasonable content difficulty, and grading, can influence students' ratings. The findings indicate that students value interpersonal relationships and cherish individualized feedback and receiving personal support.