Nber Working Paper Series Evaluating Methods for Evaluating Instruction: the Case of Higher Education

This paper studies methods for evaluating instruction in higher education. We explore student evaluations of instruction and a variety of alternatives. We develop a simple model to illustrate the biases inherent in student evaluations. Measuring learning using grades in future courses, we show that student evaluations are positively related to current grades but uncorrelated with learning once current grades are controlled. We offer evidence that the weak relationship between learning and student evaluations arises in part because students are not aware of how much they have learned in a course. We conclude with a discussion of alternative methods for evaluating teaching. Bruce A. Weinberg Department of Economics Ohio State University 410 Arps Hall 1945 North High Street Columbus, OH 43210 and NBER [email protected] Belton M. Fleisher The Ohio State University 413 Arps Hall 1945 North High Street Columbus, OH 43210 [email protected] Masanori Hashimoto The Ohio State University 410B Arps Hall 1945 North High Street Columbus, OH 43210 [email protected]