Although there exists considerable dissent, the majority view among higher
education professionals is that student evaluations of teaching are valid on the
basis of a considerable body of research showing a positive correlation between
student evaluations of faculty and objective measures of student achievement.
The single most serious caveat concerning this evidence is that this correlation
may be an associative relationship (rather than a causative relationship)
generated by underlying variables such as student ability and interest in the
subject matter. It seems plausible that capable students with a high level of
interest in the subject matter will both do better on examinations, and take a
more favorable view of the efforts of their instructors. Much of the cited research
showing a positive correlation between student evaluations and student
achievement either fails to control for student ability/interest at all, or controls for
it by means which may be inadequate (such as random assignment of students
to classes). The present research examines the relationship between student
achievement (as measured by the grade which the student earned in
Intermediate Accounting I) and student evaluations (as measured by the mean
class evaluation of the student’s instructor in Introductory Accounting II),
controlling for ability with three variables: grade which the student earned in
Introductory Accounting II, student’s Grade Point Average, and student’s ACT
score. Controlling for ability, a statistically significant negative relationship is
found between student evaluations and student achievement. This research
therefore strengthens concerns of some faculty that the widespread and
significant application of student evaluations of teaching in faculty performance
evaluation may be partially responsible for the interrelated phenomena of grade
inflation and content debasement.