The Role of Student Needs and Teacher Orientations in Student Ratings of Teachers 1

This research addressed itself to the issue of the validity of student ratings of teachers, viewing the act of rating as an instance of person perception in which students’ needs were held to affect their perception of teachers. It was hypothesized that specified student needs would be related to ratings of specific teacher orientations congruent with those needs. Four hundred five graduate students completed the Personality Research Form and rated 12 teachers as portrayed in vignettes. The hypothesis was tested using canonical correlation analysis. Results indicated that the first three canonical sets were significant (p < .01) and that, in spite of some overlap within these sets, congruence between needs and ratings was obtained.