Faculty Evaluations by Randomized Response Sampling

Abstract

Students taking part in faculty evaluations have a tendency to avoid questions which reveal too much about themselves when answered. Innocuous questions usually are answered truthfully. Questions that tend to stigmatize usually meet with resistence. Students will try to avoid questions that downgrade them in the eyes of the interviewer. These questions will go unanswered or they will be answered incorrectly. The randomized response model may be employed when evaluating teacher effectiveness. This technique helps eliminate the major causes of bias in sample surveys, that is, the refusal of the respondent to answer questions and incorrect answers. Randomized response allows the interviewee to give answers that furnish information on a probability basis. In that way the interviewer would know only the probability that the answer was true. Since this type of answer is is less revealing, this approach might encourage greater cooperation, better responses, and reduce evasive answer bias.