“Student Evaluations of Teaching” (SETs) have been in the air again, at least at the SOCCCD. (I've been told that the "Faculty Association is working on a new, more effective student evaluation system.")
I just wanted to remind everyone that, if research on the validity of SETs is any guide, we shouldn’t be relying on them at all.
By John W. Lawrence, AAUP, MAY-JUNE 2018
...Psychologist Wolfgang Stroebe has argued that reliance on SET scores for evaluating teaching may contribute, paradoxically, to a culture of less rigorous education. He reviewed evidence that students tend to rate more lenient professors more favorably. Moreover, students are more likely to take courses that they perceive as being less demanding and from which they anticipate earning a high grade. Thus, professors are rewarded for being less demanding and more lenient graders both by receiving favorable SET ratings and by enjoying higher student enrollment in their courses. Stroebe reviewed evidence that significant grade inflation over the last several decades has coincided with universities increasingly relying on average SET scores to make personnel decisions. This grade inflation has been greater at private colleges and universities, which often emphasize “customer satisfaction” more than public institutions. In addition, the amount of time students dedicate to studying has fallen, as have gains in critical-thinking skills resulting from college attendance....
✅ Student Evaluations of Teaching Encourages Poor Teaching and Contributes to Grade Inflation: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis: Student Evaluations of Teaching Encourages Poor Teaching and Contributes to Grade Inflation: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis
Wolfgang Stroebe, Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 13 May 2020
By Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed, May 22, 2018
✅ Even ‘Valid’ Student Evaluations Are ‘Unfair'
By Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed, February 27, 2020
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