The significance of circumstances for college students' ratings of their teachers and courses

Although firm generalizations and conclusions cannot yet be drawn from the extant research on the effects on teacher and course ratings of the circumstances surrounding these evaluations, at least some studies have shown that college students' ratings of their teachers and courses are somewhat higher when students remain anonymous rather than identifying themselves, when the purported use of the ratings is an official or administrative one for use in salary, promotion, or tenure considerations rather than otherwise, and when the instructor is present rather than absent during the rating session. (The differences between each of these contrasted circumstances are usually rather small and do not inevitably appear across studies.) Certain variations in rating format have been found to make a difference in the ratings obtained, whereas other have not. From limited evidence, the exact timing (or occasion) of evaluation appears not to be important to ratings. Variability in sampling procedures, as it affects the composition of students available to complete rating forms, may or may not turn out to be a generally important element in ratings (as directly relevant data are collected). The analysis concludes with a discussion of (1) the presumed bias in ratings produced in certain of the rating conditions and (2) the more general issue of the comparability of ratings made in different circumstances of evaluation.