Flunking the Test - the Dismal Record of Student Evaluations, by P. Trout, Academe, AAUP, July-August 2000, pp. 58-61.

Summarized by J. T. P. Yao, 8 December 2000

"… Now almost 90 percent of U. S. campuses require evaluation of teaching, according to a 1993 survey by Peter Seldin, a professor of management at Pace University. The results of these evaluations are routinely … factored into decisions about faculty retention, tenure, promotion, and merit pay. Although questionnaires and the weight given them differ from department to department and college to college, no other methods of evaluating teaching comes close to matching the popularity and importance of the numerical survey. Seldin reported that half of the colleges he surveyed relied on student evaluations alone to assess 'teaching' (defined … as merely classroom instruction)."

"… The problem … is that no scholarly consensus exists about what the 'good' or 'effective' teaching is. … How can any form gauge the 'effectiveness' of classroom instruction, when we have no cogent definition of what is being measured? What numerical forms apparently measure are the degree to which students are happy or satisfied with the instructor (personality), the course (requirements), and the outcome (grade). …"

"… Validating a form is very expensive and therefore rarely done. … College instructors … are economic beings who calculate their self-interest when making decisions affecting their income. … That means that they will give students what they want - and many want lighter workloads, easier tests, and higher grades. … No wonder a 1987 Carnegie Foundation study found that 67 percent of professors reported a widespread lowering of standards in American higher education."

"Should the goal actually be to improve instruction, then several steps should do the trick: have smaller classes, periodically solicit written comments from students, offer fewer lectures and more group discussions, create a professional development program (including seminars, a resource center, and mentoring), and develop a university system that rewards classroom rigor at each stage of an instructor's career (complete with cash rewards, grants, and sabbaticals to study and improve pedagogy)."

"It is high time that the use of these forms be discussed and debated, not just passively accepted. … "

[Readers who are interested in this article are encouraged to read the original paper in its entirety. Other summary notes on faculty reward systems are available on the Internet at http://lohman.tamu.edu under the heading "Summaries of Papers ..."]