IDEA’s Teaching Essentials (TE) Quick, Sound Student Feedback Paper - IDEA Paper 77 - March 2019

Oct 15, 2026

IDEA’s Teaching Essentials (TE) is a 13-item student ratings of instruction instrument designed to collect quick, credible student feedback on how often an instructor demonstrates seven evidence-based teaching behaviors tied to students’ perceptions of course and teaching excellence. The paper explains TE’s purpose, development process, and recommended use, and links its survey items to established teaching principles and effective-teaching dimensions, supported by both empirical and theoretical research.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages13

Reading Time33 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

IDEA’s Teaching Essentials (TE)

Why Use TE?

Why TE Was Created

How TE Was Developed

IDEA’s Teaching Essentials: Quick, Sound Student Feedback IDEA Paper \#77 • March 2019 Stephen L. Benton • The IDEA Center Abstract IDEA’s Teaching Essentials (TE) is a useful tool for gathering student feedback on how frequently an instructor exhibits each of seven behaviors that correlate most highly with student perceptions of course and teaching excellence. TE is appropriate for instructors who desire quick, sound student feedback on (a) displaying personal interest in students and their learning, (b) finding ways to help students answer their own questions, (c) demonstrating the importance and significance of the subject matter, (d) making it clear how each topic fit into the course, (e) explaining course material clearly and concisely, (f) introducing stimulating ideas about the subject, and (g) inspiring students to set and achieve goals which really challenge them. TE’s survey items are based on Chickering and Gamson’s Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education (1987), and they align with Hativa’s (2014) essential dimensions of effective teaching. Thus the instrument enjoys both empirical and theoretical support. Keywords: Student ratings of teaching, student evaluations of teaching, course evaluations, college teaching “Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful.” —George Box IDEA’s Teaching Essentials (TE) is a 13-item studentratings-of-instruction (SRI) instrument used “to gather feedback from students to inform instructors about suggestions for making improvements” in teaching and courses ( Benton & Li, 2015, p. 7) . In this paper, I explain why TE was created, how it was developed, how it should be used, and the theory and research supporting it. But first, let’s consider why instructors might want to use TE. Why Use TE? IDEA’s current TE can be found in its entirety at [https://www.ideaedu.org/Portals/0/Uploads/Docume](https://www.ideaedu.org/Portals/0/Uploads/Docume)nts/IDEA- CL%20SRI%20Sample%20Instruments/SampleSRI_teaching-essentials-updated-012419.pdf. The first, most obvious, advantage is TE’s brevity. Most students can probably fill out a form with 12 closedended questions and one open-ended question in a few minutes (Hativa, 2014) . Short forms are considered sufficient for summative evaluation as long as they include overall summary items and important general teaching behaviors, which TE does (Cashin & Downey, 1992; Hativa) . Second, TE’s choice of teaching behaviors is theoretically sound, because the selection is based on Chickering and Gamson’s Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education (1987) . Moreover, as I describe in a later section of this paper, it aligns with a published model (Hativa) of the essential dimensions of effective teaching. Third, the seven teaching behaviors are the ones most highly correlated with student ratings of global measures of teaching and course excellence (Benton, Li, Brown, Guo, & Sullivan, 2015) . Frequent use of these methods is positively correlated with average student ratings. Fourth, three of the items control for extraneous student characteristics that influence ratings—typical work habits, background preparation, and motivation to take the course. IDEA statistically adjusts overall summary scores based on student responses to those items, and thus instructors whose students have relatively poor background preparation, poor study skills, or little desire to take the course are not greatly disadvantaged. Fifth, the TE class report provides comparative scores for the overall IDEA database, institution, and discipline grouping. Instructors can thus see how their scores compare to college faculty in general, colleagues at their own institution, and other instructors in their academic field. Sixth, the feedback provided to instructors in the class report includes links to resources for improving their understanding and use of the teaching behaviors. Why TE Was Created TE was created in 2014

FAQs

What does IDEA’s Teaching Essentials (TE) measure?

TE measures how frequently an instructor shows seven teaching behaviors associated with student perceptions of course and teaching excellence, using a 13-item instrument.

Why are the seven TE teaching behaviors considered theoretically sound?

The paper states that the behaviors were selected based on Chickering and Gamson’s Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education and align with published dimensions of effective teaching.

How was TE developed to connect behaviors with student evaluations?

Regression analyses were conducted using aggregated student ratings from many classes across multiple institutions (2002–2011) to identify the behaviors most strongly correlated with global measures of teaching and course excellence.

Oct 15, 2026

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