Student evaluation of teaching (SET) is important for assessing university instructors' performance. However, this system seems biased as students' grade expectations result in rewards or penalties in SET. As a fair evaluation of grades became difficult during the COVID-19 pandemic, universities implemented a relaxed grade policy that expanded the…

Asking students to evaluate teaching faculty by every ending semester in modern education is an established trend. In the higher education circles, it is validated based on a large body of research showing a relationship between these evaluations and students' achievement. The arising problem is whether this relation is positively associated or…

Course Evaluation Instruments (CEIs) are critical aspects of faculty assessment and evaluation across most higher education institutions, but heated debates surround the value and validity of such instruments. While some argue that CEI scores are valid measures of course and instructor quality, others argue that faculty members can game the…

The purpose of the study is to explore the influence of teaching evaluations on teachers in that they might try to please their students by giving higher grades in order to get higher teaching evaluation scores. To achieve this purpose, the study analyzed the correlations between teaching evaluation scores, student's final grades and course fail…

Faculty members are often evaluated primarily on the results of student end-of-course surveys (SEOCSs) for promotion, teaching contract renewals, and offers of teaching assignments. Consequently, SEOCSs have become a primary focus in faculty evaluations. Rigor in a course and the assignment of grades associated with assessments can be a source of…

Recently published evidence of limited learning among American college students confirms the damage done when students, faculty and institutions pursue interests that conflict with the educational process. The "disengagement compact" in which faculty tacitly trade lenient workloads and grading for higher student evaluation of teaching…

This article examines, through the lens of social influence theory, the impact of consumerism on faculty behavior. Rathus (2005) defines social influence as "the ways in which people alter the thoughts, feelings, and emotions of others" (p. 607). Demands such as student-teacher evaluations and high graduation rates can lead professors to…

The use of student ratings to measure instructors' teaching performance and effectiveness in tertiary education has been an important but controversial tool in the improvement of teaching quality during the past few decades. This is an attempt to explore non-instructional factors of student evaluations by discussing and reviewing relevant…

As administrators are pressured to increase retention rates in accounting departments, and higher education in general, a deadly symbiosis is occurring. Most students and parents only wish for high grades, so year after year many educators engage in unethical grade inflation and course work deflation. Since administrators use the students to audit…

Grade inflation over the past few decades has been a concern for many universities. Course evaluation scores are known to be positively correlated with students' expected grades, and this paper tests whether or not there is an incentive for the instructor to "buy" higher evaluation scores by inflating grades. To test this hypothesis, I…

This article addresses the connection between two continuing trends in higher education: semester evaluation of faculty by students (SE's) and grade inflation. The two phenomena are explored historically; then a two-part plan is proposed to enhance the evaluation of both students and faculty. This solution does not replace current evaluation…

Some faculty members at Texas A&M University will each be $10,000 richer next month, and they will have their students to thank. This article reports that the university system is awarding bonuses ranging from $2,500 to $10,000 to faculty members who received the highest grades on end-of-semester student evaluations. The competition is being…

Scott Jaschik's (2010) article "Who Really Failed?" details the experience of Dominique Homberger, a tenured faculty member at Louisiana State University (LSU) who was removed from teaching her introductory biology course citing student complaints in regards to "the extreme nature" of the grading policy. This removal has…

Using data on 4 years of courses at American University, regression results show that actual grades have a significant, positive effect on student evaluations of teaching (SETs), controlling for expected grade and fixed effects for both faculty and courses, and for possible endogeneity. Implications are that the SET is a faulty measure of teaching…

In this article concerning grade inflation, the author restricts his attention to the college and university level, although many of the tools and ideas developed here should be useful for high schools as well. The author considers the relationships between grades instructors assign and scores they receive on end-of-the semester student…