Student Evaluation of Lecturers as an Indicator of Instructional Quality: A Validity Study

AbstractTo assess the extent to which student evaluations of lecturers are accurate indicators of quality of instruction (teacher effectiveness), 128 students taking a multisection course in University Mathematics evaluated the performance of their particular lecturers. Initial tests indicated no difference among the students taking the different sections (same content) in either aptitude or expected performance. Hence, the fact that significantly positive correlations were obtained between average student performance and average student evaluations of their lecturers across the various sections suggests that student evaluations of this kind can be used as a measure of instructional effectiveness under appropriate conditions.