Researchers at Penn State identify key elements of quality instruction
A commonly held belief that college students are only interested in courses where they can earn an "easy A" is not supported by a Penn State research study. What college students really value is how much they feel they learn in a course, according to recent findings from a survey.
"In our surveys of students at University Park, we found the single best predictor of how much students liked and positively evaluated the quality of instruction in courses was how much they had learned," said Fern K. Willits, distinguished professor emerita of rural sociology in the College of Agricultural Sciences, one of the members of the research team. "The belief that difficult courses and too much classwork will result in low student ratings is not supported by our data."







