JournalofInformationTechnologyandApplicationinEducationVol.3Iss.4,December2014www.jitae.

org
doi:10.14355/jitae.2014.0304.01

OptimizationDecisionMethodfor
UndergraduateTeachingEvaluation
withHybridDataInformation
CongjunRao*1,ZhongwenChen2
CollegeofMathematicsandPhysics,HuanggangNormalUniversity,Huanggang438000,China

DepartmentofScienceandTechnology,HuanggangNormalUniversity,Huanggang438000,China

cjrao@foxmail.com;zhongwenchen@foxmail.com

Abstract
Undergraduate teaching evaluation plays an important role
in promoting the educational management and improving
the teaching quality in colleges and universities. In this
paper, considering the uncertainty and fuzziness in
undergraduate teaching evaluation, we translate the
problemofundergraduateteachingevaluationintoahybrid
multiattributedecisionmakingwithhybriddatawhichthe
attribute values integrate with real numbers, interval
numbers and fuzzy numbers. To evaluate and rank the
undergraduate teaching level for multiple alternative
universities, we propose a novel optimization decision
method based on grey relational analysis. Moreover, an
application decision making example is given to highlight
the implementation, availability, and feasibility of this
optimizationdecisionmethod.
Keywords
Undergraduate Teaching Evaluation; Hybrid Multiattribute
Decision Making; Hybrid Data Information; Grey relational
Degree

plays an important role in promoting the educational

management and improving the teaching quality in
collegesanduniversities.Thiseffectisreflectedintwo
basic aspects. The first one is to promote the
constructionofthecollegesanduniversitieseffectively.
The second is to enhance the schools selfdiscipline
consciousnessandselfdisciplineeffectively.Themost
directeffectofundergraduateteachingevaluationisto
promote the construction of schools, and let the
schools focus on increasing investment and improve
the teaching conditions. Also, it makes further clear
guiding ideology of running school, improves the
level of management, strengthens the construction of
teachingstaffandpromotesthereformofteaching.In
a word, it has played a very important role in the
improvement of teaching, talent training and
educationquality(Stronge,2006).

In the 21st century, with the rapid progress in

economic globalization and science and technology,
the comprehensive national strength competition is
increasingly fierce. To vigorously improve school
running level, the teaching quality of universities has
become the theme of the times, and also has become
the urgent task of higher education reform and
development. Undergraduate education is the basis
and the main body of higher education and the
undergraduate teaching is the key to improve the
qualityofthewholehighereducation.

Generally, in the practical undergraduate teaching

evaluation, the expert group often gives a score for
eachevaluationattributeforallalternativeuniversities,
andthenusestheweightedaveragemethodtogivea
comprehensive score of teaching level for each
university. This method is simple, but it has some
problems (Wei, 2012), for example, due to the
restrictions of profession and experience, the score
which is given by the experts in the form of real
number has a certain subjective randomness, and
sometimes the comprehensive evaluation results are
unfair. The evaluation workload is great, but the
evaluationresultsmustbegiveninashorttime,thusit
will affect the objectivity and the accuracy of
evaluationresultsinsomeextent.

Since1994, the Ministry of Education of China has

organized the undergraduate teaching evaluation for
the colleges and universities. By the end of 2004, a
totalof350collegesanduniversitieshadacceptedthe
undergraduate teaching evaluation. This evaluation

Undergraduate teaching evaluation is a complex

system which involves with multiple attributes. In
August 2004, the ministry of education of China
issued the Evaluation scheme of undergraduate
teaching evaluation. In this scheme, seven firstclass

Introduction

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www.jitae.orgJournalofInformationTechnologyandApplicationinEducationVol.3Iss.4,December2014

feasibility ofthe proposed decision method. Section5

concludesthepaper.

attributes are given to evaluate the undergraduate

teaching level, i.e., university guiding ideology,
teaching staff, teaching conditions, specialty
construction and teaching reform, teaching
management, study style, and teaching effect. These
firstclass attributes include 19 subattributes, i.e., the
universityorientation,educationalideas,theteachers
numberandstructure,thequantityofmasterteacher,
the basic facilities for teaching, teaching funds,
specialty, curriculum, teaching practice, the
management team, teaching quality control, the
teacher demeanor, learning culture, basic theory and
basic skills, graduation thesis or graduation design,
the ideological and political moral culture, sports,
socialreputationandemployment.Whenweusethese
attributes to evaluate a universitys teaching level,
there are a lot of fuzziness and uncertainty in the
evaluation process. As in the 19 subattributes, the
valuesofsomequalitativeattributessuchasuniversity
orientation and educational ideas are often given in
the form oflinguistic fuzzy variables, suchasworst,
worse, bad, common, good, better, best or lowest,
lower,low,common,high,higher,highest(Xu,2004;
Rao and Peng, 2009; Rao and Zhao, 2009). And the
values of the quantity of master teacher and the
percent of doctorates in all teachers often can be
determined by real numbers. In addition, for some
special attributes, such as teaching funds, the value
can not be given by a real number because of the
overlapping inputs for many kinds of funds using,
and can only be given by a value range, i.e., interval
number. Thus, in the undergraduate teaching
evaluation, the precise values, interval numbers and
the linguistic fuzzy variables coexist simultaneously
(Rao and Peng, 2009; Xu, 1999). Considering this
hybrid data information, we translate the problem of
undergraduate teaching evaluation into a hybrid
multiattribute decision making with hybrid data
which the values of attributes integrate with real
numbers, interval numbers and fuzzy numbers, and
propose a novel optimization decision method based
on grey relational analysis to rank the teaching level
forallalternativeuniversities.Wetrytoprovideanew
quantitative method for undergraduate teaching
evaluationunderuncertaininformationenvironment.

Decision Making Method

The problem of undergraduate teaching evaluation
can be described as the following hybrid multi
attribute decision making with hybrid data. We
suppose that an expert group wants to evaluate the
teaching level for m alternative universities. n
evaluation attributes such as university orientation,
educationalideas,theteachersnumberandstructure,
etc. form the evaluation system. The attribute set is
denoted as P { p1 , p2 ,L , pn } . W ( w1 , w2 ,L , wn ) is
the weight vector of attributes such that 0 w j 1
and nj 1 w j 1 . The original hybrid decision making
matrix is denoted as A (aij ) mn , where aij is the
attribute value of alternative xi (i 1, 2,L , m) on
attribute p j ,j=1,2,,n.Wedenote:
N {1, 2,L , n} , N1 {1, 2,L , n1} ,
N 2 {n1 1, n1 2,L , n2 } , N3 {n2 1, n2 2,L , n} ,

where N1 , N 2 , N 3 denote the sets of three kinds of

attributeswithrealnumbers,linguisticfuzzyvariables,
intervalnumbers,respectively.When j N1 , aij R is
arealnumber.When j N 2 , aij areintervalnumbers
aij [aijL , aijU ] . When j N3 , aij is a linguistic fuzzy

variable. All values of aij are formed an original

hybrid decision making matrix A (aij ) mn . Now we
needtomakeevaluationandranktheteachinglevelof
allalternativeuniversities.
DataProcessing
Inhybridmultiattributedecisionmaking,whensome
attribute values are given in the form of linguistic
fuzzy variables, we can transform them into triangle
fuzzy numbers. The transfer method is given as
follows.
Definition 1. Suppose that S a ={worst, worse, bad,
common,good,better,best}or Sb ={lowest,lower,low,
common, high, higher, highest}, then S a and Sb are
called the set of linguistic fuzzy numbers, they are
denoted as Sa {s1 , s2 ,L , s7 } , Sb {s1' , s2' ,L , s7' } , and

Therestofthepaperisorganizedasfollows.Section2
proposesanoveloptimizationdecisionmethodbased
on grey relational analysis to rank the teaching level
for all alternative universities. Section 3 gives the
decision making process description. Section 4
presentsanumericalapplicationexampletoshowthe

128

their corresponding triangle fuzzy numbers are

definedasfollows.Forthetypeofrevenueattributes,
wedenote
s1 =(0,0,0.1); s2 =(0,0.1,0.2); s3 =(0.2,0.3,0.4);

JournalofInformationTechnologyandApplicationinEducationVol.3Iss.4,December2014www.jitae.org

s4 =(0.4,0.5,0.6); s5 =(0.6,0.7,0.8); s6 =(0.8,0.9,1);

iscalledahybridsequence.

s7 =(0.9,1,1).

Forthehybriddecisionmakingmatrix Y ( yij ) mn ,the

elementsofeachrowconstituteahybridsequence yi ,

Forthetypeofcostattributes,wedenote

where

s1 =(0.9,1,1); s2 =(0.8,0.9,1); s3 =(0.6,0.7,0.8);

yi ( yi1 , yi 2 ,L , yi , n1 ,[ yiL, n1 1 , yiU, n1 1 ],L ,[ yiL, n2 , yiU, n2 ],

s4 =(0.4,0.5,0.6); s5 =(0.2,0.3,0.4); s6 =(0,0.1,0.2);

s7 =(0,0,0.1),

L , [ y iL,n 1 , y iM,n 1 , yUi ,n 1 ],L , [ y inL , y inM , yUin ])

2

the corresponding triangle fuzzy numbers for Sb are

Definition 5. Let Y ( yij ) mn be a hybrid making

thesameas S a .

matrix,then

When the values of attribute

j N3 are all

f ( f1 , f 2 ,L , f n )

transformed into triangle fuzzy numbers, a new

hybrid decision making matrix can be obtained, it is
denotedas X ( xij ) mn .

(max yi1 , max yi 2 ,L , max yi , n1 ,[max y iL,n 1 , max yUi ,n 1 ],

1 i m

L , [max

1 i m

Wedenotethebenefittypeattributeas I1 ,anddenote

the cost type attribute as I 2 , and M {1, 2,

ij

ij

yinM ,max yinU ])

1 i m

yi areexpressedby(2)and(1),respectively.Thenthe

grey relational coefficient of hybrid attribute

sequencesisdefined:

GreyRelationalAnalysisMethodofHybridSequences

r ( f j , yij )

In this section, we give an algorithm based on grey

relational degree to deal with the problem of
undergraduate teaching evaluation. Firstly, some
definitionsaregiven.

max max ( f j , yij )

i

( f j , yij ) max max ( f j , yij )

i

,(3)

The grey relational degree of hybrid attribute

sequencesisdefined:

Definition 2. Suppose a1 [a1L , a1M , a1U ] , a2 [a2L , a2M ,

r ( y0 , yi ) w j r ( f j , yij ) ,(4)

aU2 ] are two triangle fuzzy numbers, then the

j 1

Hausdorffdistancebetween a1 and a2 aredefined:

Where ( f j , yij ) is the difference information at the j

thpointof yi to f .When j N1 ,

DH (a1 , a2 ) max{ a1L a2L , a1M a2M , a1U aU2 } .

( f j , yij ) max yij yij ;

Definition 3. Suppose a1 [a1L , a1U ] , a2 [a2L , aU2 ] are

1 i m

two positive interval numbers, then the distance

betweenthesetwointervalnumbersaredefined:

When j N 2 ,
( f j , yij )

2
(a1L a2L ) 2 (a1U aU2 ) 2 .
2

2
(max yijL yijL ) 2 (max yijU yijU ) 2 ;
1 i m
1 i m
2

When j N3 ,

Definition 4. Let ( (1), (2),L , (n)) be an n

( f j , yij ) DH ( f j , yij )

dimensional data sequence. If the real numbers,

interval numbers and triangular fuzzy numbers are
coexistent in the values of (1), (2),L , (n) , then

are compared sequences, i 1, 2,L , m , where f and

yij [ y , y , y ] ,i M , j N 3 .
ij

1 i m

yiM, n21max biU, n21 ],

1 i m

attribute sequences, y0 f is reference sequence, yi

ij

1 i m

,[max yinL , max

1 i m
1 i m

Definition 6. Suppose y1 , y2 ,L , ym are hybrid

yij [ y L , yU ], i M , j N 2 ;
M

, max

1 i m

],[max yiL, n21 , max

1 i m
1 i m

Based on Definitions 25, the following Definition 6

definesgreyrelationaldegreeofhybridsequences.

yij yij , i M , j N1 ;
ij

1 i m

yiU, n2

iscalledpositiveidealsolution.

the real numbers, interval numbers and triangular

fuzzy numbers refer to Xu (1999, 2004), Xiao et al.
(2005). Suppose the matrix X is transformed into
normalizedmatrix Y ( yij ) mn ,where

1 i m

yiL, n2

(2)

L , m} , N {1, 2,L , n} . The algorithms of normalizing

D (a1 , a2 )

(1)

max{ max yijL yijL , max yijM yijM , max yijU yijU }.
1 i m

1 i m

1 i m

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www.jitae.orgJournalofInformationTechnologyandApplicationinEducationVol.3Iss.4,December2014

is the distinguishing coefficient, generally, we set

0.5 ; w j is the weight of the jth attribute p j ,

0.15,0.2).Ourtaskistoevaluatetheteachinglevelof
four alternative universities according the given
informationinTable1.

j 1, 2,L , n .

(1) Transform the linguistic fuzzy variables into

triangle fuzzy numbers, and normalize the data, and
then use (2) to determine the positive ideal solution,
i.e.,referencesequence

The Decision Making Process Description

Inthissection,wegivethedetailstepsforevaluating
and ranking the teaching level of all alternative
universities.

f (1,1,[0.462, 0.836], (0.492, 0.698, 0.990),

(0.533, 0.688, 0.893)).

Step 1: The expert group determines the original

hybrid decision making matrix A (aij ) mn , where aij

(2) Using (3) and (4) to compute the grey relational

degree r ( y0 , yi ) , i 1, 2,3, 4 ,

is the attribute value of alternative xi (i 1, 2,L , m) on

attribute p j ( j 1, 2,L , n) .

r ( y0 , y1 ) 0.732 ; r ( y0 , y2 ) 0.580 ;

Step 2: Use Definition 1 to transform linguistic fuzzy

variables into triangle fuzzy numbers, then a new
hybrid decision making matrix X ( xij ) mn is

r ( y0 , y3 ) 0.822 ; r ( y0 , y4 ) 0.597 .

(3) Rank the teahing level of all the alternative

universitiesinaccordancewith r ( y0 , yi ) .

obtained.

Because r ( y0 , y3 ) r ( y0 , y1 ) r ( y0 , y4 ) r ( y0 , y2 ) , then

Step3:Normalizetherealnumbers,intervalnumbers
andtriangularfuzzynumbersrefertoXu(2004),then
wegetthenormalizedmatrix Y ( yij ) mn ,where

the teaching level of four alternative universities are

rankedasfollows: U 3 f U1 f U 4 f U 2 .
Conclusions

yij yij , i M , j N1 ; yij [ y ijL , yUij ], i M , j N 2 ;

yij [ y L , y M , yU ] ,i M , j N 3 .
ij

ij

In this paper, we propose an optimization decision

method based on grey relational degree of hybrid
sequences to evaluate the undergraduate teaching
level of universities. There are several valuable work
in this paper, i.e., the new definition of hybrid
sequence is given, and the grey relational degree of
hybrid sequences is presented based on Professor
Deng grey relational analysis method. Therefore, it
providesaneffectivewaytodealwiththeproblemsof
hybridmultiattributedecisionmaking.

ij

Step4:Use(2)todeterminethepositiveidealsolution,
i.e.,referencesequence.
Step 5:Use(3)and(4)tocomputethegreyrelational
degree r ( y0 , yi ) .
Step 6: Rank the teahing level of all the alternative
universitiesinaccordancewith r ( y0 , yi ) .
An Application Example

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Here let us suppose that a expert group wants to

evaluate the teaching level of four alternative
universities (U1, U2, U3, U4) by considering the
followingfiveattributes,i.e.,thepercentofdoctorates
inallteachers( p1 )(%),thequantityofmasterteacher

This work was supported by the 2014 Key Project of

Hubei Provincial Department of Education (No.
D20142903), and the project of the key discipline of
mathematics of Huanggang Normal University (No.
sxky201401)

with senior professional post ( p2 ), teaching funds

( p3 )(104Yuan),teachingqualitycontrol( p4 ),learning

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