What Do Our Hospitality Students Want? An Examination of Written Comments from Teaching Evaluations

ABSTRACT

Teaching evaluations play a significant role in determining retention, promotion, and tenure. Most of these decisions are based upon an actual quantitative score derived from standard questions. This qualitative study goes beyond the numerical scores and examines 1849 written comments taken from one academic year. Through a content analysis, 4 dimensions along with 23 themes emerged: 1) Course Management and Delivery(Teaching Style, Knowledge, Organization, Engagement, Pace, Staying on Topic, Communication, Responsive/Assistance; 2) Course Policies (Attendance, Workload, Exams, Grading, Group Projects, Industry Application); 3) Support Materials (Guest Speakers, Demonstration/Examples, Technology, PowerPoint, Textbook); 4) Personal Traits (Care, Challenging, Success, Attributes). These dimensions provide context to the quantitative scores in an effort to support educators as they attempt improve on specific content areas in the classroom.

KEYWORDS:

• Course management
• student comments
• teaching evaluations