A Latent Profile Analysis of University Course Evaluations

Abstract

In this study, we derive the latent profile according to the course-evaluation pattern of college students and analyze the factors that influence the classification of the latent profile. Also, we examined the difference in the level of academic commitment by potential profile. For the analysis, we used 83,069 evaluations by 12,919 subjects from university A lecture evaluations conducted in the second semester of 2020. By analyzing the aspects of lecture evaluations using the class plan, content delivery, interaction, feedback, and evaluations system, which are the five sub-factors of lecture evaluation, we classified the miscellaneous material profiles into a total of four. As factors determining the latent profile, we found that student characteristics (grade, major field), professor's characteristics (position), and lecture characteristics (completion category, lecture size) had a significant effect. Specifically, the lower the student's grade, the higher the probability of quick success in the upper group rather than in those in the arts and sports field, the humanities, and social sciences, or science and engineering fields. The lower the teaching position, the higher the probability of belonging to the upper group in lecture evaluation, and the higher the probability of belonging to the higher group with higher lecture-evaluation results as the liberal-arts lectures rather than major lectures and the smaller lecture size. Finally, examining the level of academic commitment by potential profile according to the course-evaluation pattern showed that the higher was the result of the lecture evaluation, the higher was the level of academic commitment. This study is meaningful in that we analyze the factors that influence the university's lecture evaluations held every semester, and comprehensively analyze the relationship between the lecture evaluation results and academic commitment.