Reliability of student's feedback in the evaluation of instructors at the Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences

Background and Teaching evaluation questionnaire of instructors is one of the important instruments used in educational processes which can be performed using different methods including student's feedbacks. This is now considered as a challenging educational issue and different positions exist in this regard. The purpose of this study was to assess the reliability of student's feedback in different terms and majors in the evaluation of instructors teaching the same course. Ïn a cross-sectional analytic study, evaluation of 40 instructors was carried out by 89 groups of students. Ëach instructor was teaching a specific course to several groups of students. The questionnaire was classified into four areas. The total score was assessed for each instructor and analyzed using descriptive statistics and correlation test. Reliability was assessed by Çronbach's alpha coefficient. The reliability of the questionnaire was high (α=0.96) based on Çronbach's alpha coefficient. The reliability index was the highest in the area of teaching skills (α=0.96) and the lowest in terms of educational discipline (α=0.81). There was a significant correlation among different studied variables scored by different groups of students for each instructor. Â significant correlation was also found between the total and the average score (P<0.001).Çonclusion: The questionnaire used for the evaluation of the instructors was highly reliable and reliability was higher than optimal level in all areas. Therefore, it seems that student's feedback is one of the reliable methods in the evaluation of instructors using an appropriate questionnaire.