| Abstract: | A continuing problem with student evaluation of college instruction is the replicated correlation between course ratings and student grades. The finding has been variously interpreted as an indication of validity, as a grading leniency effect, or as an indirect result of student selection variables. In this article, I show that a considerably larger portion of rating variance can be explained by students' subjective assessment of learning than by actual course grades. Summative data from 50 sections showed that perceived learning correlated .88 with course evaluations and .86 with instructor evaluations. These results are viewed as support for the validity hypothesis. The statistics were not reduced by partialling out the effects of anticipated letter grade, which preserved the idea that leniency or student characteristics could account for at least a small portion of the rating-grade effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
