Student Evaluations of Teaching: Research and Commentary [Updated]

One of the prevalent contradictions in higher education is the high-stakes use of student evaluations of teaching (SET) despite the overwhelming evidence that SETs are flawed measures of teacher/teaching quality and are often harmful for faculty already marginalized in society and academia.

Here is a collection of research and commentary highlighting those flaws and calling for ending this traditional practice:

• Boring, A., Ottoboni, K., & Stark, P.B. (2016, January 7). Student evaluations of teaching (mostly) do not measure teaching effectiveness. ScienceOpen Research.
• Uttl, B., White, C.A., & Gonzalez, D.W. (2017, September). Meta-analysis of faculty’s teaching effectiveness: Student evaluation of teaching ratings and student learning are not related. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 54, 22-42.
• MacNell, L., Driscoll, A. & Hunt, A.N. (2015). What’s in a Name: Exposing Gender Bias in Student Ratings of Teaching. Innovative Higher Education, 40(4), 291–303. doi:10.1007/s10755-014-9313-4
• Student evaluations of teaching are not only unreliable, they are significantly biased against female instructors, Anne Boring, Kellie Ottoboni, and Philip B. Stark, LSE Impact Blog
• How Student Evaluations Are Skewed against Women and Minority Professors
• New study could be another nail in the coffin for the validity of student evaluations of teaching
• New analysis offers more evidence against student evaluations of teaching
• Study finds gender perception affects evaluations
• Academic sexism: Research suggests students are biased against female lecturers
• Student evaluations can’t be used to assess professors. They’re discriminatory
• Gender Bias in Student Evaluations, Kristina M. W. Mitchell and Jonathan Martin
• Most institutions say they value teaching but how they assess it tells a different story
• Kelly-Woessner, A., & Woessner, M. (2006). My professor is a partisan hack: How perceptions of a professor’s political views affect student course evaluations. PS: Political Science and Politics, 39(3), 495-501. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20451790
• Speaking Out Against Student Evals
• Statement on Student Evaluations of Teaching, American Sociological Association, September 2019
• The Weaponization of Student Evaluations of Teaching: Bullying and the Undermining of Academic Freedom, Jason Rodriguez
• Even ‘Valid’ Student Evaluations Are ‘Unfair,’ Colleen Flaherty
• Unbiased, reliable, and valid student evaluations can still be unfair, Justin Esarey and Natalie Valdes
• No Satisfaction on Student Ratings of Instruction
• Students’ Grade Satisfaction Influences Evaluations of Teaching: Evidence from Individual-level Data and an Experimental Intervention

[Updates]

• Colleges Are Getting Smarter About Student Evaluations. Here’s How, Kristen Doerer

• Course Evaluations: All Cost, No Benefit

• ‘Lose some weight’, ‘stupid old hag’: universities should no longer ask students for anonymous feedback on their teachers