| Despite higher education administrators' success in developing processes to measure course effectiveness through course evaluations, understanding is weak regarding using course evaluation data to make judgments and decisions. The purpose of the quantitative descriptive correlational study with archival data was to (a) assess the course evaluation instrument used at the College of Pharmacy in Tennessee for evidence of validity for intended use and reliability for precision of measurement; (b) examine the predictive relationship between students' ratings of the quantity of material covered, relevance of material, textbook selection, intellectual challenge, effort put into course, interest and stimulation of the course assignments, the appropriateness of the assigned coursework to meet the learning objectives, and grading method (predictor variables) and the overall course evaluation (criterion variable); and (c) examine the extent to which type of course, grade point average (GPA), and course level moderate the relationship between the predictor variables and overall course evaluation. The population included archival course evaluations of College of Pharmacy students completed from 2008-2012. The results provided evidence of validity and reliability of the course evaluation instrument. Significant moderate to strong positive bivariate relationships ( r=.756 - .565) were found between each of the eight course evaluation rating variables and the overall course rating variable. One course type attribute, pharmacy practice course type, significantly moderated the relationship between the predictor and criterion variables (r=-.247, p=.003). The results suggest higher education administrators should consider individual course evaluation item ratings, not just the overall rating, when making decisions. |
