Student Evaluation Of Teacher Performance: Random Pre-Destination

Abstract

The student evaluation, used to measure students’ perceptions of teacher performance, has been increasingly used as the predominant component in assessing teaching effectiveness (Waters et al. 1988), and the widespread movement of outcomes assessment across the country makes this trend likely to continue in the future (McCoy et al. 1994, AACSB 1994, SACS 1995). Substantial research has been conducted with regard to the reliability and accuracy of student evaluation of teaching quality, and a considerable number of uncontrollable factors are found to bias the results of the evaluation rating. This paper identifies one more factor. Each student has an “evaluator profile”, which decreases the reliability of the student evaluation. An “evaluator profile” is a persistent pattern of evaluating behavior that may or may not be consistent with the quality of the characteristic being evaluated. Each class of students consists of a random sample of different evaluator profiles. A student evaluation rating of a teacher’s performance is biased up or down depending on the concentration of high or low evaluator profiles present. This paper further shows through simulation the degree to which student “evaluator profiles” impact the overall student evaluation rating of teacher performance. We find that there is evidence to support the “evaluator profile” conjecture, and that these “evaluator profiles” do in fact have the potential to change overall student evaluation ratings substantially.

A literature review on the student evaluation of teaching

“…SET is a relatively recent term that is used synonymously with several previous terminologies such as Student Evaluation Of Educational Quality (SEEQ) (Coffey and Gibbs, 2001; Grammatikopoulos et al , 2015; Lidice and Saglam, 2013), SET effectiveness (Marsh, 1987, 2007), student evaluation of teacher performance (Chuah and Hill, 2004; Coburn, 1984; Flood, 1970; Poonyakanok et al , 1986), student evaluation of instruction (Aleamoni, 1974; Aleamoni and Hexner, 1980; Clayson et al , 2006; Powell, 1977), student course satisfaction (Betoret, 2007; Bolliger, 2004; Rivera and Rice, 2002), or just simply student course evaluation (Anderson et al , 2005; Babcock, 2010; Bembenutty, 2009; Chen, 2016; Duggan and Carlson-Bancroft, 2016; Huynh, 2015; Pravikoff and Nadasen, 2015; Stark and Freishtat, 2014). Despite the difference in terms, the core objectives of all of the above are similar.…”

Validity of student evaluation of teaching in higher education: a systematic review

“…Student evaluation of teaching is a fairly new concept which was introduced and utilised interchangeably with numerous expressions such as students' appraisal of teaching effectiveness (Marsh, 2007), student appraisal of instructor performance (Chuah and Hill, 2004), students' evaluation of educational quality (SEEQ) (Lidice and Saglam, 2013), student course satisfaction (Betoret, 2007), students' evaluation of instruction (Clayson et al, 2006), or student course evaluation (Chen, 2016;Duggan and Carlson-Bancroft, 2016). Notwithstanding the disparities in the concepts, they have a common underlying objective.…”