Students' Grade Satisfaction Influences Evaluations
of Teaching: Evidence from Individual-level Data and an Experimental
Intervention
https://www.edworkingpapers.com/sites/default/files/ai22-513.pdf
Abstract:
Student surveys are widely used to evaluate university teaching and increasingly adopted at the K-12 level, although there remains considerable debate about what they measure. Much disagreement focuses on the well-documented correlation between student grades and their evaluations of instructors. Using individual-level data from 19,000 evaluations of 700 course sections at a flagship public university, we leverage both within-course and within-student variation to rule out popular explanations for this correlation. Specifically, we show that the relationship cannot be explained by instructional quality, workload, grading stringency, or student sorting into courses. Instead, student grade satisfaction—regardless of the underlying cause of the grades—appears to be an important driver of course evaluations. We also present results from a randomized intervention with potential to reduce the magnitude of the association by reminding students to focus on relevant teaching and learning considerations and by increasing the salience of the stakes attached to evaluations for instructor careers. However, these prove ineffective in muting the relationship between grades and student scores.
https://www.edworkingpapers.com/sites/default/files/ai22-513.pdf
Abstract:
Student surveys are widely used to evaluate university teaching and increasingly adopted at the K-12 level, although there remains considerable debate about what they measure. Much disagreement focuses on the well-documented correlation between student grades and their evaluations of instructors. Using individual-level data from 19,000 evaluations of 700 course sections at a flagship public university, we leverage both within-course and within-student variation to rule out popular explanations for this correlation. Specifically, we show that the relationship cannot be explained by instructional quality, workload, grading stringency, or student sorting into courses. Instead, student grade satisfaction—regardless of the underlying cause of the grades—appears to be an important driver of course evaluations. We also present results from a randomized intervention with potential to reduce the magnitude of the association by reminding students to focus on relevant teaching and learning considerations and by increasing the salience of the stakes attached to evaluations for instructor careers. However, these prove ineffective in muting the relationship between grades and student scores.
Related:
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/01/19/study-grade-satisfaction-major-factor-student-evals
https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereknewton/2021/09/28/grade-inflation-is-real/
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/01/19/study-grade-satisfaction-major-factor-student-evals
https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereknewton/2021/09/28/grade-inflation-is-real/
A Good Survey:
Student Evaluations of Teaching Encourages Poor
Teaching and Contributes to Grade Inflation: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01973533.2020.1756817
Abstract
Student Evaluations of Teaching (SETs) do not measure teaching effectiveness, and their widespread use by university administrators in decisions about faculty hiring, promotions, and merit increases encourages poor teaching and causes grade inflation. Students need to get good grades, and faculty members need to get good SETs. Therefore, SETs empower students to shape faculty behavior. This power can be used to reward lenient-grading instructors who require little work and to punish strict-grading instructors. This article reviews research that shows that students (a) reward teachers who grade leniently with positive SETs, (b) reward easy courses with positive SETs, and (c) choose courses that promise good grades. The study also shows that instructors want (and need) good SETs.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01973533.2020.1756817
Abstract
Student Evaluations of Teaching (SETs) do not measure teaching effectiveness, and their widespread use by university administrators in decisions about faculty hiring, promotions, and merit increases encourages poor teaching and causes grade inflation. Students need to get good grades, and faculty members need to get good SETs. Therefore, SETs empower students to shape faculty behavior. This power can be used to reward lenient-grading instructors who require little work and to punish strict-grading instructors. This article reviews research that shows that students (a) reward teachers who grade leniently with positive SETs, (b) reward easy courses with positive SETs, and (c) choose courses that promise good grades. The study also shows that instructors want (and need) good SETs.
https://thehill.com/opinion/education/590971-will-the-us-higher-education-bubble-finally-burst
The choice of college major is of particular salience in influencing lifetime earnings. In an era of widespread grade inflation, undertaking challenging coursework and selecting rigorous majors may offer a clear signal to potential employers and yield a higher return on investment. There is some evidence that college completion rates in recent years have risen in conjunction with a spike in grade inflation, suggesting a decline in the strength of the signaling effect of college degrees.