Motivation: An appropriate topic for a teaching evaluation?

Student motivation is a complex issue, yet it is common to find a simple question about it on teaching evaluation instruments. In the course of developing a new, universal student evaluation of teaching instrument, the University of New England (UNE) proposed a question regarding motivation. To test the question, a series of 42 cognitive interviews were conducted. Student participants represented the diversity of the student body, coming from a range of degree programs and including students studying on campus and by distance. The reasons provided by students as to their ratings included teacher characteristics and actions such as approachability and communication style, but many students cited items outside the control of the teacher such as teaching role, the nature of the topic, characteristics of the course, and their personal level of self-motivation. The rating obtained for a motivation question in a teaching survey would therefore be very difficult to interpret, and given the increasing level of importance of these surveys, I conclude it is not appropriate to be asking such a question.