Abstract
Students’ Evaluations of Teaching (SETs) are widely used as measures of teaching quality in Higher Education. A review of specialized literature evidences that researchers widely discuss whether SETs can be considered reliable measures of teaching quality evaluation. Though the controversy mainly refers to the role of students as assessors of teaching quality, most of research studies on SETs focus on the design and validation of the evaluation procedure and even when the need of measuring SETs reliability is recognized, it is generally indirectly assessed for the whole group of students by measuring inter-student agreement. In this paper the focus is on the direct assessment of the reliability of each student as a measurement instrument of teaching quality. An agreement-based approach is here adopted in order to assess student’s ability to provide consistent and stable evaluations; the sampling uncertainty is accounted for by building non-parametric bootstrap confidence intervals for the adopted agreement coefficients.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abrami, P. C. (2001). Improving judgments about teaching effectiveness using teacher rating forms. New Directions for Institutional Research, 2001(109), 59–87.
Abrami, P. C., d’Apollonia, S., & Cohen, P. A. (1990). Validity of student ratings of instruction: What we know and what we do not. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82(2), 219–231.
Ackerman, D., Gross, B. L., & Vigneron, F. (2009). Peer observation reports and student evaluations of teaching: Who are the experts? Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 55(1), 18–39.
Adams, M. J., & Umbach, P. D. (2012). Nonresponse and online student evaluations of teaching: Understanding the influence of salience, fatigue, and academic environments. Research in Higher Education, 53(5), 576–591.
Aitken, R. (1969). Measurement of feelings using visual analogue scales. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 62(10), 989–993.
Aleamoni, L. M. (1999). Student rating myths versus research facts from 1924 to 1998. Journal of Personnel Evaluation in Education, 13(2), 153–166.
Altaye, M., Donner, A., & Eliasziw, M. (2001). A general goodness-of-fit approach for inference procedures concerning the kappa statistic. Statistics in Medicine, 20(16), 2479–2488.
Alwin, D. F. (1989). Problems in the estimation and interpretation of the reliability of survey data. Quality and Quantity, 23(3–4), 277–331.
Bassi, F., Clerci, R., & Aquario, D. (2017). Students evaluation of teaching at a large italian university: Measurement scale validation. Electronic Journal of Applied Statistical Analysis, 10(1), 93–117.
Berk, R. A. (2005). Survey of 12 strategies to measure teaching effectiveness. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 17(1), 48–62.
Bi, J., & Kuesten, C. (2012). Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC): A framework for monitoring and assessing performance of trained sensory panels and panelists. Journal of Sensory Studies, 27(5), 352–364.
Blackman, N. J. M., & Koval, J. J. (2000). Interval estimation for Cohen’s kappa as a measure of agreement. Statistics in Medicine, 19(5), 723–741.
Bland, J. (2008). Measurement in health and disease. Cohens kappa. New York: University of York, Department of Health Sciences.
Boring, A., Ottoboni, K., & Stark, P. B. (2016). Student evaluations of teaching (mostly) do not measure teaching effectiveness. ScienceOpen Research, 10, 1–11.
Brennan, R. L., & Prediger, D. J. (1981). Coefficient kappa: Some uses, misuses, and alternatives. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 41(3), 687–699.
Burke, M. J., Finkelstein, L. M., & Dusig, M. S. (1999). On average deviation indices for estimating interrater agreement. Organizational Research Methods, 2(1), 49–68.
Carpenter, J., & Bithell, J. (2000). Bootstrap confidence intervals: When, which, what? A practical guide for medical statisticians. Statistics in Medicine, 19(9), 1141–1164.
Centra, J. A. (1979). Determining faculty effectiveness. Assessing teaching, research, and service for personnel decisions and improvement. Hamilton: ERIC.
Chmura Kraemer, H., Periyakoil, V. S., & Noda, A. (2002). Kappa coefficients in medical research. Statistics in Medicine, 21(14), 2109–2129.
Coffey, M., & Gibbs, G. (2001). The evaluation of the student evaluation of educational quality questionnaire (SEEQ) in UK higher education. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 26(1), 89–93.
Cohen, J. (1960). A coefficient of agreement for nominal scales. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 20(1), 37–46.
Davies, M., Hirschberg, J., Lye, J., Johnston, C., & McDonald, I. (2007). Systematic influences on teaching evaluations: The case for caution. Australian Economic Papers, 46(1), 18–38.
De Mast, J., & Van Wieringen, W. N. (2007). Measurement system analysis for categorical measurements: Agreement and kappa-type indices. Journal of Quality Technology, 39(3), 191–202.
Dey, E. L. (1997). Working with low survey response rates: The efficacy of weighting adjustments. Research in Higher Education, 38(2), 215–227.
Emery, C. R., Kramer, T. R., & Tian, R. G. (2003). Return to academic standards: A critique of student evaluations of teaching effectiveness. Quality Assurance in Education, 11(1), 37–46.
Falotico, R., & Quatto, P. (2015). Fleiss kappa statistic without paradoxes. Quality & Quantity, 49(2), 463–470.
Feistauer, D., & Richter, T. (2017). How reliable are students evaluations of teaching quality? A variance components approach. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 42(8), 1263–1279.
Feldman, K. A. (1977). Consistency and variability among college students in rating their teachers and courses: A review and analysis. Research in Higher Education, 6(3), 223–274.
Feldman, K. A. (1984). Class size and college students’ evaluations of teachers and courses: A closer look. Research in Higher Education, 21(1), 45–116.
Feldman, K. A. (1993). College students’ views of male and female college teachers: Part II. Evidence from students’ evaluations of their classroom teachers. Research in Higher Education, 34(2), 151–211.
Fidelman, C. G. (2007). Course evaluation surveys: In-class paper surveys versus voluntary online surveys. Palamedu: Boston College.
Fleiss, J. L., Levin, B., & Paik, M. C. (2013). Statistical methods for rates and proportions. New York: Wiley.
Goos, M., & Salomons, A. (2017). Measuring teaching quality in higher education: Assessing selection bias in course evaluations. Research in Higher Education, 58(4), 341–364.
Grammatikopoulos, V., Linardakis, M., Gregoriadis, A., & Oikonomidis, V. (2015). Assessing the students evaluations of educational quality (SEEQ) questionnaire in greek higher education. Higher Education, 70(3), 395–408.
Gravestock, P., & Gregor-Greenleaf, E. (2008). Student course evaluations: Research, models and trends. Princeton: Citeseer.
Gwet, K. L. (2014). Handbook of inter-rater reliability: The definitive guide to measuring the extent of agreement among raters. Wright City: Advanced Analytics, LLC.
Hallgren, K. A. (2012). Computing inter-rater reliability for observational data: An overview and tutorial. Tutorials in Quantitative Methods for Psychology, 8(1), 23–34.
Hornstein, H. A. (2017). Student evaluations of teaching are an inadequate assessment tool for evaluating faculty performance. Cogent Education, 4(1), 1–8.
James, L. R., Demaree, R. G., & Wolf, G. (1984). Estimating within-group interrater reliability with and without response bias. Journal of Applied Psychology, 69(1), 85–98.
Kherfi, S. (2011). Whose opinion is it anyway? Determinants of participation in student evaluation of teaching. Journal of Economic Education, 42(1), 19–30.
Klar, N., Lipsitz, S. R., Parzen, M., & Leong, T. (2002). An exact bootstrap confidence interval for \(\kappa\) in small samples. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series D (The Statistician), 51(4), 467–478.
Kuo, W. (2007). How reliable is teaching evaluation? The relationship of class size to teaching evaluation scores. IEEE Transactions on Reliability, 56(2), 178–181.
Lalla, M., Facchinetti, G., & Mastroleo, G. (2005). Ordinal scales and fuzzy set systems to measure agreement: An application to the evaluation of teaching activity. Quality and Quantity, 38(5), 577–601.
Landis, J. R., & Koch, G. G. (1977). The measurement of observer agreement for categorical data. Biometrics, 33(1), 159–174.
Lüdtke, O., Trautwein, U., Kunter, M., & Baumert, J. (2006). Reliability and agreement of student ratings of the classroom environment: A reanalysis of timss data. Learning Environments Research, 9(3), 215–230.
Marasini, D., Quatto, P., & Ripamonti, E. (2014). A measure of ordinal concordance for the evaluation of university courses. Procedia Economics and Finance, 17, 39–46.
Marsh, H. W. (1982). SEEQ: A reliable, valid, and useful instrument for collecting students’evaluations of university teaching. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 52(1), 77–95.
Marsh, H. W. (1983). Multidimensional ratings of teaching effectiveness by students from different academic settings and their relation to student/course/instructor characteristics. Journal of Educational Psychology, 75(1), 150–166.
Marsh, H. W. (1984). Students’ evaluations of university teaching: Dimensionality, reliability, validity, potential baises, and utility. Journal of Educational Psychology, 76(5), 707–754.
Marsh, H. W. (1987). Students’ evaluations of university teaching: Research findings, methodological issues, and directions for future research. International Journal of Educational Research, 11(3), 253–388.
Marsh, H. W., & Dunkin, M. (1992). Students’ evaluations of university teaching: A multidimensional perspective. In J. C. Smart (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (Vol. 8, pp. 143–223). New York: Agathon Press.
Marsh, H. W., & Overall, J. (1981). The relative influence of course level, course type, and instructor on students’ evaluations of college teaching. American Educational Research Journal, 18(1), 103–112.
Marsh, H. W., & Roche, L. (1993). The use of students evaluations and an individually structured intervention to enhance university teaching effectiveness. American Educational Research Journal, 30(1), 217–251.
Marsh, H. W., & Roche, L. A. (1997). Making students’ evaluations of teaching effectiveness effective: The critical issues of validity, bias, and utility. American Psychologist, 52(11), 1187–1197.
Martínez-Gómez, M., Sierra, J. M. C., Jabaloyes, J., & Zarzo, M. (2011). A multivariate method for analyzing and improving the use of student evaluation of teaching questionnaires: A case study. Quality & Quantity, 45(6), 1415–1427.
McKeachie, W. J. (1997). Student ratings: The validity of use. Washington: American Psychological Association.
Morley, D. D. (2012). Claims about the reliability of student evaluations of instruction: The ecological fallacy rides again. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 38(1), 15–20.
Onwuegbuzie, A. J., Daniel, L. G., & Collins, K. M. (2009). A meta-validation model for assessing the score-validity of student teaching evaluations. Quality & Quantity, 43(2), 197–209.
Pinto, F. S. T., Fogliatto, F. S., & Qannari, E. M. (2014). A method for panelists consistency assessment in sensory evaluations based on the cronbachs alpha coefficient. Food Quality and Preference, 32, 41–47.
Porter, S. R., & Umbach, P. D. (2006). Student survey response rates across institutions: Why do they vary? Research in Higher Education, 47(2), 229–247.
Porter, S. R., & Whitcomb, M. E. (2005). Non-response in student surveys: The role of demographics, engagement and personality. Research in Higher Education, 46(2), 127–152.
Pounder, J. S. (2008). Transformational classroom leadership: A novel approach to evaluating classroom performance. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 33(3), 233–243.
Rindermann, H., & Schofield, N. (2001). Generalizability of multidimensional student ratings of university instruction across courses and teachers. Research in Higher Education, 42(4), 377–399.
Rossi, F. (2001). Assessing sensory panelist performance using repeatability and reproducibility measures. Food Quality and Preference, 12(5), 467–479.
Sarnacchiaro, P., & D’Ambra, L. (2012). Students’ evaluations of university teaching: A structural equation modeling analysis. Electronic Journal of Applied Statistical Analysis, 5(3), 406–412.
Seldin, P. (1999). Changing practices in evaluating teaching: As practical guide to improved faculty performance and promotion/tenure decisions (Vol. 10). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Shapiro, E. G. (1990). Effect of instructor and class characteristics on students’ class evaluations. Research in Higher Education, 31(2), 135–148.
Sim, J., & Wright, C. C. (2005). The kappa statistic in reliability studies: Use, interpretation, and sample size requirements. Physical Therapy, 85(3), 257–268.
Sliusarenko, T. (2013). Quantitative assessment of course evaluations. PhD Thesis (PhD-2013-318), Technical University of Denmark (DTU).
Stack, S. (2003). Research productivity and student evaluation of teaching in social science classes: A research note. Research in Higher Education, 44(5), 539–556.
Stonebraker, R. J., & Stone, G. S. (2015). Too old to teach? The effect of age on college and university professors. Research in Higher Education, 56(8), 793–812.
Thorpe, S. W. (2002). Online student evaluation of instruction: An investigation of non-response bias. AIR 2002 forum paper.
Ting, K. F. (1999). Measuring teaching quality in Hong Kong’s higher education: Reliability and validity of student ratings. In J. James (Ed.), Quality in teaching and learning in higher education (pp. 46–54). Hong Kong: Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Ukoumunne, O. C., Davison, A. C., Gulliford, M. C., & Chinn, S. (2003). Non-parametric bootstrap confidence intervals for the intraclass correlation coefficient. Statistics in Medicine, 22(24), 3805–3821.
Vanacore, A., & Pellegrino, M. S. (2017). An agreement-based approach for reliability assessment of students evaluations of teaching. In Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on higher education advances (pp. 1286–1293). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València
Watson, P., & Petrie, A. (2010). Method agreement analysis: A review of correct methodology. Theriogenology, 73(9), 1167–1179.
Wolbring, T., & Treischl, E. (2016). Selection bias in students evaluation of teaching. Research in Higher Education, 57(1), 51–71.
Wright, R. E. (2006). Student evaluations of faculty: Concerns raised in the literature, and possible solutions. College Student Journal, 40(2), 417.
Zhao, J., & Gallant, D. J. (2012). Student evaluation of instruction in higher education: Exploring issues of validity and reliability. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 37(2), 227–235.
Acknowledgements
The authors express their gratitude to the anonymous reviewers for their positive comments and helpful suggestions which contributed significantly to the improvement of this article.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Vanacore, A., Pellegrino, M.S. How Reliable are Students’ Evaluations of Teaching (SETs)? A Study to Test Student’s Reproducibility and Repeatability. Soc Indic Res 146, 77–89 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-018-02055-y
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-018-02055-y