Students, faculty and administrators at a major Canadian university were surveyed to investigate the utility or "consequential validity" of student ratings of instructors. Of the 1,229 (approximately equal number of males and females) students and alumni, about half (52%) indicated that they had never used the ratings, but of those who did use it, many (47%) reported using it several times to select courses and/or instructors. The majority (84%) of faculty members (n = 357) gave favorable responses about the usefulness of student ratings for improving quality of teaching. Paradoxically, even though faculty members were positive about the student ratings, they did not generally use them to make changes in their teaching. The majority (87%) of administrators (n = 52) stated that they use the student ratings for various purposes including decisions about faculty merit and tenure. Students, faculty and administrators considered the overall course instruction to be the most useful type of information derived from the student ratings. The results of the present study indicate that while the utility of data from student ratings of instructors is quite variable, there is evidence of "consequential validity" particularly from administrators.

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Cette Ctude s'intCresse particulierement b la relation qui existe entre les attitudes verbales vis-a-vis la ICgislation de la marijuana et un aspect de la conduite explicite exprimee par rapport a l'objet de cette attitude. Plus precis6 ment, nous voulons dkterminer dam quelle mesure la conduite se dissocie des attitudes lorsqu'on demande aux sujets observes de poser un geste concret en presence de deux temoins. I1 s'agit de savoir si la conduite individuelle se situe dans le prolongement de l'attitude lorsque cette < contrainte sociale est op6rante dans la situation en tant que variable nouvelle. Cette recherche tente Cgalement d'apprecier les effets de deux autres facteurs : le besoin d'ktre approuvt (une variable psychologique) et la congruence (une variable lite a la situation).The reported study concerns the relationship between verbal attitudes toward the legalization of marijuana and one form of overt behaviour expressed toward this attitude object. More specifically, interest lay in determining how behaviour deviated from consistency with attitudes when subjects were asked to perform an overt act in the immediate presence of two other individuals. The main concern was to determine whether or not an individual's behaviour would remain consistent when this "social constraint" was injected into a situation as an intervening variable. The research also attempted to ascertain the effects of two additional factors; need for approval (a personality variable) and congruency (a situational variable).Three rather distinct views have emerged from studies concerned with the relationship between attitudes and overt behaviour. One viewthe "postulate of consistency" (Green, 1954) assumes that the correspondence between peoples' attitudes and their overt behaviour will be high. An opposite viewthe "postulate of independent variation" (Merton, 1949; Lapiere, 1934) suggests that little or no correspondence can be expected between attitudes and behaviour. More recent theoretical and research endeavours dealing with the relationship between the two suggest that a third viewthe "postulate of contingent consistency''be acknowledged.In general, those subscribing to the third position claim that "situational" variables, i.e., norms, roles, and other ''social constraints," should be investigated to explain the apparent "inconsistencies." In 1963, a paper by DeFleur and Westie further explicated the concept of attitude and pointed * I would like to thank Frank Jones and the referees of CRSA for their helpful comments and suggestions of an earlier draft.