Modulating factors in the perception of teaching quality

Abstract

This article examines the existing research findings in relation to the research of the factors that are presumably involved in university students’ evaluations of the teaching quality they receive, possibly threatening the validity of the construct. The review is organized around the three implicated sources in the perceptive process of the student, being the student himself, the professor, and the context. The review concludes that, despite some minor effects, the factors under analysis do not represent a substantial threat to the system’s validity. The unproductive debate that has gone on for decades about guarantees in the evaluation of teaching staff has largely been used to cover up the absence of a desire to institutionalize this kind of evaluation system.