Volume6Number12008JIRSEA

Fuzzy Logic Approach to Evaluate the Characteristics of Teaching at a University

Mohd Lazim Abdullah, Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Science and Technology, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, 21030 Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia E-mail: lazim_m@umt.edu.my Abu Osman Md Tap, University of Toibah, Medina, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia amantap@yahoo.com Wan Salihin Wong Abdullah, Quality Assurance Centre, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, 21030 Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia salihin@umt.edu.my

Abstract: This paper provides a reports on the application of a fuzzy set decision making approach in evaluating the characteristics of teaching among lecturers at a university. The approach outlined here is based on the fuzzy sets theory with the objectives of normalising the data on teaching characteristics evaluation into fuzzy numbers and to rank the degree of contribution in five teaching characteristics from two faculties. The study employed a questionnaire which consisted of five major characteristics of teaching and learning sampled from one hundred and twenty three lecturers from a public university in the east coast of the Peninsular Malaysia. The five teaching characteristics were Planning and preparation of teaching, Lecture room/lab teaching, Preparation of teaching resources, Course evaluation system, and Relationship between student-lecturer. The questionnaires were distributed to students by the general staff at the end of every semester for three consecutive semesters. Two definitions of contributions in teaching as linguistic labels were defined to represent the five characteristics prior normalization to fuzzy numbers. In the process of decision making, specified goals had to be attained and specified constraints had to be fulfilled. Decision making by intersection of fuzzy goals and constraints was used to analyze the data. The study found that various degrees of membership were recorded for every teaching characteristics ranging from 0.28 to 0.73. The application of fuzzy sets theory in the decision making environment positively leads to useful numerical hierarchy which provides an effective indicator to the decision makers. Keywords: university teaching, effective teaching, fuzzy sets, degrees of contributions, fuzzy decision making.