Student Evaluations Of MTI Teaching

In the current educational background, teaching quality assurance is a priority in the institutes of higher education (HEIs). Student evaluations of teaching (SETs) have been widely accepted as a reliable, valid and effective rating instrument, and have attracted much attention from researchers both at home and abroad. However, the practice of SETs has not yet been carried out in MTI (Master of Translation and Interpreting) program since its inception in2007. The present study, based on American Customer Satisfaction model, develops a student satisfaction model, aiming to depict a comprehensive picture of MTI educational practice, and provide the first-hand reference for a highly intentional program setting, effective teaching methods, and welcome campus construction in order to ensure the systematic and scientific operation of MTI teaching practice.In the thesis, the author first reviews the major findings of student evaluations of teaching (SETs), expounds theories underpinning the practice of student evaluations, and introduces a modified version of student evaluation model based on student satisfaction. Then three research questions are proposed:1) What is MTI students’satisfaction rate about the overall teaching in their program?2) Are there any differences in the satisfaction degree in different universities? If any, what are they?3) What are the factors that really work in the course of student evaluations of teaching in MTI program?To address the research questions, a paper-based questionnaire survey is administered nation-widely among five MTI institutes chosen from the first40institutes approved by the Ministry of Education in2007and2008respectively. Participants in this research are80second-year students of the MTI institutes mentioned above. This survey is composed of thirty-nine items, including twenty-nine quantitative items, three qualitative items, and seven personal information items. We conduct quantitative analysis on the data collected by employing SPSS (Version18.0for windows), and also make qualitative analysis by examining students’responses to the open-ended question items, in order to depict a comprehensive picture of the research focus. Results obtained show that1) students. panoramically, express positive responses towards overall teaching quality in Mil institutes;2) in terms of MTI teaching quality in different types of universities, it can be argued that university selectivity addresses, to a large extent, the overall student satisfaction;3) factors, including university selectivity, formal work experience, study intention, job intention, and instructional process indicators, cluster together to form the influencing mechanism to student evaluations of MTI teaching.The present study contributes in two important ways. The study, on the one hand, delineates a comprehensive picture of MTI teaching quality as a whole to understand the status quo and problems inside MTI institutes. It probes, on the other, into the influencing mechanism sensitive to the rating results in order to provide suggestions on adjusting curricular structure, improving faculty qualifications, and constructing campus environment to a realistic level.