Comparing Professors: How Student Ratings Contribute to the Decline in Quality of Higher Education.

Abstract

The evaluation of professors ought to be a potent means of improving American higher education. One well-es tablished way of judging faculty is to ask students to fill in multiple-choice check lists of desirable teacher qualities. These lists then serve as raw data for compar ing professors statistically to determine salary increases, promotions, and teach ing awards. Unfortunately, this well meant practice has undermined the quali ty of higher education. The use of student ratings has become widespread during the past decade. A sample of more than 200 institutions showed that 86% conducted student eval uations of teaching, and in two-thirds of these cases the results were made available to university administrators.1 Another survey of 53 state and 47 private teacher education programs in 14 states showed that 84% used some standardized instru ment to rate faculty and that 67% of these made using the instrument compulsory. All programs reported that ratings carried weight for promotion and tenure.2 If ratings are used only to provide feedback to the professor, then student opinion need not be particularly valid. However, if rewards and penalties are to be assigned, it is extremely important that the rating measure what it purports to measure: namely, superior teaching. Hence, the scientific quality of student ratings becomes extremely important only when used for administrative ends. Yet, according to Robert Powell, man datory faculty ratings have never been of much value, even as remediation devices.