An investigation of nonresponse bias in medical student assessment of instruction

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Nonresponse bias in medical students' ratings of basic science instructors was studied by comparing the responses of initial respondents with those obtained through follow-up procedures. Three discriminant analyses were used to compare two groups of students' ratings using the six items on the instructor rating form as variables. It was concluded that these medical students' assessments of basic science instruction showed no significant bias from failure to obtain responses from all students. The results provide some evidence for allowing basic science instructors to have more confidence in the representativeness of student feedback on instruction provided by respondents. Studies to generalize these findings to other higher education populations are suggested.