Abstract
Virtually every institution of higher education in the US uses some type of student teaching evaluation (STE) instrument as a means of assessing instructors' instructional performance in courses. Unfortunately, many administrators and faculty misinterpret STE ratings. Therefore, the present article provides a comprehensive critique of STE instruments. In particular, we build on Messick's (Educational Measurement, MacMillan, pp. 13-103, and Messick (Am. Psychol., 50, 741-749, 1995, 1989) conceptualization of validity to yield what we refer to as a meta-validity model that subdivides content-, criterion-, and construct-related validity into several areas of evidence. We use our meta-validity model to conduct a meta-validity analysis of STEs. Specifically, we assessed the score-validity of STEs based on findings from the extant literature. We conclude that strong evidence has been provided with respect to areas of criterion-related validity; however, for the most part, weak or inadequate evidence has been provided with regard to areas of both content-related and construct-related validity. This seriously calls into question both the score-validity and utility of STEs.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 197-209 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| Journal | Quality and Quantity |
| Volume | 43 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Mar 2009 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Formative evaluation
- Meta-validity analysis
- Meta-validity model
- Summative evaluation
- Teaching evaluations
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Statistics and Probability
- General Social Sciences