Abstract:
Background of the study
The Faculty of Education conducted a course in Sinhala medium for the Post Graduate Diploma in Education in 2008/09 for 1400 graduate teachers. Most of them were Government School teachers. The students were divided into eight sub groups and the course was conducted in the university premises during the weekends and on government holidays. The course consisted of seven core subjects including some optional components, teaching practice and a compulsory essay. Each subject was covered by 16 – three hour- lecture sessions. Another 21 – three hour- small group sessions were conducted to guide them for teaching practice and essay. All the coursework was covered by about 20 permanent lecturers and several visiting lecturers.
The purpose of this study is to find out student feedback on the quality of teaching individuals as well as the Departments and the Faculty.
Methodology
The study was limited to 10 identified aspects related to the teaching learning process. A questionnaire was set for gathering information on teaching quality. It consisted of 10 statements. The student teachers had to assess the lecturers, using five levels: strongly agreed, agreed, impossible to concluded, disagreed and strongly disagreed. The names of the lecturers were not given in the questionnaire.
The study was carried out at the end of completion of all the lectures and several small group workshops. The study was administered by the Dean of the Faculty, who was not teaching in the course except for conducting a guest lecture on that day.
A random sample approximating 1/10th of the total population amounting to 140 was selected.
Analysis of responses was carried out by allocating marks -2,-1, 0, +1and+2 respectively for each of the responses given, considering ascending order of the levels of agreements and totaling them. The ratio of total marks gained by each statement to the maximum marks could be gained if they all strongly agreed was considered as an index of the aspect of that quality. Although this index is converted to a percentage, it lies between -100 to +100. Therefore that scale is converted to another 0 – 100 scale using following formula.
The quality aspect indices and the index for total teaching quality were all calculated with respect to the each lecturer, the Department and the Faculty. Due to ethical reasons, Indices for individual lecturers were given only to themselves but the values of the indices were published without mentioning their names.
