Abstract
This paper addresses the relationship between student evaluation of teaching (SET) and academic achievement in higher education. Meta-analytic studies on teaching effectiveness show a wide range of results, ranging from small to medium correlations between SET and student achievement, based on diverse methodological approaches, sample size studies, and contexts. This work aimed to relate SET, prior academic achievement, and academic achievement in a large sample of higher education students and teachers, using different methodological procedures, which consider as distinct units of analysis the group class and the individuals, the variability between students within classes, and the variability between group-class means, simultaneously. The data analysis included the calculation of group-class means and its relationship with the group-class mean academic achievement, through correlation and hierarchical regression techniques; additionally, a multilevel path analysis was applied to the relationship between prior academic achievement, SET, and their academic achievement, considering the variability among group classes. A multisection analysis was also carried out in those course disciplines in which there was more than one class group (section). The results of individual and group-class analysis revealed that SET was moderately low but related to academic achievement in a significant way once the effect of previous academic achievement was controlled. In addition, multilevel path analysis revealed the effect of SET on achievement, both within and between group-class levels. The results of the analysis carried out in the course disciplines with different sections, according to a multisection design, yielded similar results to the individual and aggregated data analyses. Taken together, the results revealed that SET was low related to academic achievement, once the effect of previous academic achievement was controlled. From these results, it follows that the use of SET as a measure of teachers’ effectiveness for making administrative decisions remains controversial.
Highlights
Student evaluation of teaching (SET) is a generalized practice in almost every institution of higher education around the world (Richardson, 2005; Zabaleta, 2007; Huybers, 2014) – from European countries (Husbands and Fosh, 1993) to Australian and North American universities (Richardson, 2005) and South American higher education institutions (Pareja, 1986).this issue is contemporary and is a topic still open to question in higher education
The results presented are divided into two sections – those related to the aggregated data and those related to individual data – that consider the hierarchical nature of the data for the multilevel path analysis
A large number of individual students and group class were included; a multisection design was used when course disciplines had more than one class group; previous academic performance was considered, since the random allocation of students to the sections was not assured; and statistical methods were used which consider both the individual student variability within sections and the variability between sections
Summary
Student evaluation of teaching (SET) is a generalized practice in almost every institution of higher education around the world (Richardson, 2005; Zabaleta, 2007; Huybers, 2014) – from European countries (Husbands and Fosh, 1993) to Australian and North American universities (Richardson, 2005) and South American higher education institutions (Pareja, 1986). This issue is contemporary and is a topic still open to question in higher education. The evidence in support of SET as a measure of teachers’ instruction effectiveness comes from the studies showing a correlation between measures of student evaluation and student achievement
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