Influence on Learning Important, Generic Skills
In some ways, the student voice has been the most powerful in traditional schemes for evaluating teaching at the college level because student evaluations are often the only systematically collected data on teaching. Nevertheless, the way questions are asked of students, and - more important - the way they are used, often diminishes students' sense of the value of their role in this process. These student "voices" have provided a unique source of data through which to further inquire into the nature of good teaching and good teachers as well as the qualities they possess which might cause them to be perceived as so effective. Student statements appeared to cluster into five categories. They may be identified as follows: