Do Alumni Change Their Minds Regarding Student Evaluations of Teachers? On the Time Stability of Student Evaluations
26 Pages Posted: 8 Nov 2014
Date Written: May 28, 2013
Abstract
While the effectiveness and validity of student evaluations of teaching (SETs) has been discussed in the literature for decades, there is little consensus. This paper contributes to the discussion by collecting data regarding SETs from former Murray State University students. Specifically, respondents were asked to score the importance of different attributes, such as quality of teaching and expected grade, when completing the evaluations in college (college scores), and how would they score these same attributes if they were completing the evaluations now (current scores). The difference between the college scores and the current scores are statistically different from zero for most attributes and categorical variable models are used to estimate the determinants of these differences. Students were also asked if they would change the evaluations of the professors of the classes in which they studied the most, studied the least, enjoyed the most, and learned the most. The past students would, on average, give higher evaluations to all classes but the one in which they studied the least. Using econometric estimations, we were able to determine which students’ and instructors’ characteristics were the main determinants of the mentioned changes in student evaluations of teachers.
JEL Classification: M20
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation