Examining the Structural Relationships Between Pre-Service Science Teachers’ Intention to Teach and Perceptions of the Nature of Science and Attitudes

فبراير 01, 2024

Sulaf Alazzam ORCID logo EMAIL logo Mohammad AlEeassa ORCID logo

Measurement Invariance Analysis of Engineering and Mathematics Majors Students’ Understanding of Mathematics Courses Teaching Practices

يناير 17, 2024

Mahmoud Alquraan 1 2* Mohammad Alhassan 3 Noor Al Deen Atatreh

This study attempts to understand the source of variation in the Students’ Evaluation of Teaching (SET) of mathematics courses by comparing the data structure of engineering major students and mathematics major students’ datasets. The sample considered in this study consists of 644 students distributed into two majors: 237 mathematics students and 407 engineering students who filled out a 20-item SET questionnaire to rate the teaching practices of three different mathematics courses offered by the Department of Mathematics. The hypothesis tested in this study is: that variation in students’ perceptions of mathematics course teaching practices is different based on students’ majors (Mathematics versus Engineering). Measurement invariance (MI) analyses were used to examine the source of variation in the datasets and to compare engineering and mathematics students’ perceptions of the teaching effectiveness of mathematics courses. While the results of this study provide evidence of the SET validity, it was found that engineering students differently perceive three out of twenty of the SET questionnaire items when compared with mathematics major students.

Using Measurement Invariance to Explore the Source of Variation in Basic Medical Science Students’ Evaluation of Teaching Effectiveness

ديسمبر 06, 2023

Mahmoud Al-Quraan

Introduction: Many research studies have shown that students' evaluations of teaching(SET) are affected by different variables without testing the requirement of fair comparisons. These studies have not tested the measurement equivalency of SET surveys according to these variables. Measurement equivalency of SET refers to whether a SET survey is interpreted similarly across different groups of individuals (Variable Levels). Without evidence of measurement invariance across different variables under investigation, the SET ratings should not be compared across these variables and this is the goal of this study. Methods: Measurement Invariance analysis of SET survey was investigated using 1649 responses to SET of four different medical core courses offered by the College of Science and College of Medicine and from different levels. Results: The results showed the existence of teaching practices in the SET survey that are not equivalently loaded on its factor across the levels of targeted variables, and the college offered medical courses were a source of variation in basic medical science students’ evaluation of teaching effectiveness. On the other hand, teaching practices in the SET survey are equivalently loaded on its factor across course levels. Discussion: The study results showed that the SET of medical courses is comparable to the courses only taught by the College of Medicine. These results provide evidence that medical courses are different from other courses offered by other colleges. This means that comparing SET of the College of Medicine with other colleges and colleges of medicine needs to compare SET results at the college level only.