IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/che/ireepp/v6y2007i2p42-56.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Impact of Relative Grade Expectations on Student Evaluation of Teaching

Author

Listed:
  • Clifford Nowell

    (Weber State University)

Abstract

It is commonly accepted that student evaluation of teaching (SET) ratings are influenced by expected grades, and that faculty are able to 'buy' higher SET ratings by giving higher grades. Researchers have questioned whether there are limits to the ability to buy grades due to the possibility that students reward teachers for their relative grade as opposed to their absolute grade. In this paper we use SET data to investigate the relationship between SET ratings and relative grades. Similar to the prior literature, we find an indirect relationship between SET scores and historical grade performance averages (GPAs) but, we find the opposite result to be true when we examine the relationship between SET scores and expected grades earned by peers. Contrary to recent literature that suggests limits exist to an instructor's ability to purchase high SET scores when relative grades are considered, we find that the incentives to lower grading standards and buy higher SET ratings may actually be greater than has been thought in the past.

Suggested Citation

  • Clifford Nowell, 2007. "The Impact of Relative Grade Expectations on Student Evaluation of Teaching," International Review of Economic Education, Economics Network, University of Bristol, vol. 6(2), pages 42-56.
    • Handle: RePEc:che:ireepp:v:6:y:2007:i:2:p:42-56
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/iree/v6n2/nowell.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael A. McPherson, 2006. "Determinants of How Students Evaluate Teachers," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(1), pages 3-20, January.
    2. Erzo F. P. Luttmer, 2005. "Neighbors as Negatives: Relative Earnings and Well-Being," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(3), pages 963-1002.
    3. Krautmann, Anthony C. & Sander, William, 1999. "Grades and student evaluations of teachers," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 59-63, February.
    4. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    5. Paul Isely & Harinder Singh, 2005. "Do Higher Grades Lead to Favorable Student Evaluations?," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(1), pages 29-42, January.
    6. Mason, Paul M. & Steagall, Jeffrey W. & Fabritius, Michael M., 1995. "Student evaluations of faculty: A new procedure for using aggregate measures of performance," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 403-416, December.
    7. Ferrer-i-Carbonell, Ada, 2005. "Income and well-being: an empirical analysis of the comparison income effect," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(5-6), pages 997-1019, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Donghun Cho & Joonmo Cho, 2017. "Does More Accurate Knowledge of Course Grade Impact Teaching Evaluation?," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 12(2), pages 224-240, Spring.
    2. Joe Hirschberg & Jenny Lye, 2014. "The influence of student experiences on post-graduation surveys," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 1187, The University of Melbourne.
    3. Berezvai, Zombor & Lukáts, Gergely Dániel & Molontay, Roland, 2019. "A pénzügyi ösztönzők hatása az egyetemi oktatók osztályozási gyakorlatára [How financially rewarding student evaluation may affect grading behaviour. Evidence from a natural experiment]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(7), pages 733-750.
    4. Berezvai, Zombor, 2023. "Az érdemjegy torzító hatása a hallgatói véleményezési rendszerekben. Egy természetes kísérlet eredményei [How to reduce the grade bias in student evaluation systems? A natural experiment]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(7), pages 795-812.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Beleche, Trinidad & Fairris, David & Marks, Mindy, 2012. "Do course evaluations truly reflect student learning? Evidence from an objectively graded post-test," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 709-719.
    2. Tin-chun Lin, 2009. "Application of a static game of complete information: economic behaviors of professors and students," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 29(3), pages 1678-1686.
    3. James F. Ragan & Bhavneet Walia, 2010. "Differences in Student Evaluations of Principles and Other Economics Courses and the Allocation of Faculty across Courses," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(4), pages 335-352, September.
    4. Tin-chun Lin, 2009. "Endogenous effects of midterm grades and evaluations: a simultaneous framework," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 29(3), pages 1731-1742.
    5. Maarten Goos & Anna Salomons, 2017. "Measuring teaching quality in higher education: assessing selection bias in course evaluations," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 58(4), pages 341-364, June.
    6. Tin-chun Lin, 2009. "Implications of grade inflation: knowledge illusion and economic inefficiency in the knowledge market," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 29(3), pages 2314-2324.
    7. Gaviria Alejandro & Alejandro Hoyos, 2008. "Determinantes de los resultados de las evaluaciones de profesores: el caso de la Universidad de los Andes," Revista Desarrollo y Sociedad, Universidad de los Andes,Facultad de Economía, CEDE, March.
    8. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/1seuirq4ak9b9bouu1j29ebui7 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Anne Boring, 2015. "Gender Biases in Student Evaluations of Teachers," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03470161, HAL.
    10. De Witte, Kristof & Rogge, Nicky, 2011. "Accounting for exogenous influences in performance evaluations of teachers," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 641-653, August.
    11. Rieger, Matthias & Voorvelt, Katherine, 2016. "Gender, ethnicity and teaching evaluations: Evidence from mixed teaching teamsAuthor-Name: Wagner, Natascha," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 79-94.
    12. Ewing, Andrew M., 2012. "Estimating the impact of relative expected grade on student evaluations of teachers," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 141-154.
    13. Carpio, Carlos E. & Harral, Bradi & Morales, Sarahi D. & Garcia, Manuel & Middleton, Marty R. & Boren-Alpizar, Amy, 2024. "Student evaluations of teaching and grades in university agricultural programs: A tale of two countries," 2024 Annual Meeting, July 28-30, New Orleans, LA 343854, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    14. Anna Salomons & Maarten Goos, 2014. "Measuring Teaching Quality in Higher Education: Assessing the Problem of Selection Bias in Course Evaluations," Working Papers 14-16, Utrecht School of Economics.
    15. De Witte, Kristof & Rogge, Nicky, 2009. "Accounting for exogenous influences in a benevolent performance evaluation of teachers," Working Papers 2009/15, Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel, Faculteit Economie en Management.
    16. Donghun Cho & Joonmo Cho, 2017. "Does More Accurate Knowledge of Course Grade Impact Teaching Evaluation?," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 12(2), pages 224-240, Spring.
    17. Horacio Matos-Díaz, 2014. "Measuring grade inflation and grade divergence accounting for student quality," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 2(1), pages 1-16, December.
    18. Gorry, Devon, 2017. "The impact of grade ceilings on student grades and course evaluations: Evidence from a policy change," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 133-140.
    19. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/1seuirq4ak9b9bouu1j29ebui7 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Horacio Matos-Díaz & Alfred J. Crouch Ruiz, 2008. "¿Es sesgada la evaluación estudiantil? El caso de la Universidad de Puerto Rico en Bayamón," Revista de Economía Institucional, Universidad Externado de Colombia - Facultad de Economía, vol. 10(18), pages 241-260, January-J.
    21. Cho, Donghun & Baek, Wonyoung & Cho, Joonmo, 2015. "Why do good performing students highly rate their instructors? Evidence from a natural experiment," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 172-179.
    22. Wagner, N. & Rieger, M. & Voorvelt, K.J., 2016. "Gender, ethnicity and teaching evaluations : Evidence from mixed teaching teams," ISS Working Papers - General Series 617, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS), The Hague.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:che:ireepp:v:6:y:2007:i:2:p:42-56. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Martin Poulter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/iree .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.