Students ' Evaluations of University Teaching : Dimensionality , Reliability , Validity , Potential Biases , and Utility

This article provides an overview of findings and research designs used to study students' evaluations of teaching effectiveness and examines implications and directions for future research. The focus of the investigation is on the author's own research that has led to the development of the Students' Evaluations of Educational Quality (SEEQ), but it also incorporates a wide range of other research. Based on this overview, class-average student ratings are (a) multidimensional; (b) reliable and stable; (c) primarily a function of the instructor who teaches a course rather than the course that is taught; (d) relatively valid against a variety of indicators of effective teaching; (e) relatively unaffected by a variety of variables hypothesized as potential biases; and (f) seen to be useful by faculty as feedback about their teaching, by students for use in course selection, and by administrators for use in personnel decisions. In future research a construct validation approach should be used in which it is recognized that effective teaching and students' evaluations designed to reflect it are multifaceted, that there is no single criterion of effective teaching, and that tentative interpretations of relations with validity criteria and with potential biases must be scrutinized in different contexts and examine multiple criteria of effective teaching.

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