Academic institutions worldwide, from primary schools to universities, use grades or marks as a fundamental sorting and signaling mechanism for students. The grades awarded to students should be indicative of learning outcomes. However, do the grades awarded today accurately reflect student achievement in the classroom? Grade inflation has become…

Purpose: Student evaluation of teaching (SET) questionnaires are used in many countries, although much current research questions the validity of these surveys. US research indicates that more than 90 percent of academic accounting departments use this performance measurement. This paper aims to focus on the validity of SET data.…

This newsletter briefly describes the philosophy and work of project KULT-A, the evaluation of teacher service in Sweden; the latter is a follow-up to project KUL-A, evaluation of teacher training. The project's approach is reported as an effort to find which factors will in a specific context cause a teacher to feel more satisfied with his work.…

Issues pertaining to the validity of student ratings of teaching effectiveness are considered, and research results are evaluated. The following extraneous variables that affect student ratings but are not under the control or influence of the teacher are examined: class size, initial student motivation, academic field, teacher characteristics,…

A discussion of suggested techniques to be used by college department chairmen in handling teacher problems that develop annually during the second week of the semester, just before the release of the mid-semester grades, and prior to and following the final grading period, treats a number of real or imagined difficulties involving students in the…