Students' Sociocultural Background as a Discriminating Factor in the Evaluation of Teaching in a Bilingual University in Central Africa

This investigation established the variables on which students with different sociocultural backgrounds, receiving lectures from same teachers differ in their evaluation of these teachers. An evaluation questionnaire that required the students to evaluate teachers' knowledge of subject matter, rapport with students, appropriateness of teaching strategies, ability to prepare, organise, teach and assess students was constructed and validated. Nine-hundredand-twenty-seven students of anglophone and francophone sociocultural backgrounds receiving courses from both anglophone and francophone instructors in a Faculty of the University of Yaounde I participated in the study. When discriminant analysis was applied, 20 significant discriminating variables were found and categorised in two groups. A group in which mean scores by anglophone students are greater than those of francophone students and the second group in which the mean scores of francophone students are higher than those of anglophone students. The results were explained in terms of the sociocultural background of the students.