Ratings: Student Rating Scales for Tenure and Promotion

Abstract

-.75 to +.87 (5). Despite this inconsistency, an increasing number of universities, including my own, re quire student evaluation of teachers as one piece of data among others for tenure and promotion decisions. One also suspects that colleges whose primary function is teaching place an increasing importance on student rating scales. Admittedly teacher effectiveness is dif ficult to assess because recognized and unrecognized variables are so numerous and a definition of effective teaching is elusive. Yet an attempt must be made because teaching effectiveness is a universal criterion for tenure and promotion decisions, and rightly so. Because of the pressure to evaluate, many have suc cumbed to the allure of student rating scales that pro