Students’ Evaluations of Teaching Using Rating Scales. Valid and Beneficial or Biased and Harmful?

Abstract

Students‘ evaluations of teaching effectiveness/quality (SETs) are increasingly being used throughout the world. This article traces the main lines of the controversy about their validity. Research findings suggest that the relationship between pre/post measurements of learning and SETs is small to zero. In particular, the article reviews and discusses research findings and theories on the potential grading leniency bias and physical attractiveness bias in SETs. Both seem to have an important impact on students’ evaluation of teaching. Research on the usefulness, effectiveness, and of the collateral damages SET’s may cause is also taken into consideration. In this light the question is raised whether – in the sense of a dialectic of enlightenment – the emancipatory approach of SET‘s has turned into a source of subordination and conformity.