| Abstract: | Investigated the long-term stability of students' evaluations of instructional effectiveness. Ss were 1,374 undergraduate and graduate business administration majors from 100 classes who completed their programs at a comprehensive state university between 1974 and 1977. Each S provided course and instructor evaluations at the end of each class and again at least 1 yr after program completion. Results show large and significant correlations (median r?=?.83) between end-of-term and retrospective ratings (relative agreement). Differences between the 2 sets of ratings (absolute agreement) were small; the median rating was 6.63 for retrospective ratings and 6.61 for end-of-term ratings. Separate analyses showed relative and absolute agreement to be consistent in quantitative and nonquantitative courses taught at both graduate and undergraduate levels. These findings demonstrate that students' evaluations collected at the end of a course are remarkably similar to the retrospective ratings provided by the same students several years later. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
