Student Grades and Average Ratings of Instructional Quality: The Need for Adjustment

Abstract

The authors compared the average grades given in 165 behavioral and social science courses with the average ratings given by students to the instructors who taught the courses. Significant positive correlations were found between the average ratings for instructional quality and the average grades received by students. The courses in which the average grades were the highest were also those in which students gave teachers the highest ratings. Among possible reasons for the correlations are that better teachers attracted better students or that quality teachers provided more effective instruction, resulting in more student learning and, thus, higher average grades. Another explanation is that most college students tend to bias their ratings of instructional quality in favor of teachers who grade leniently (I. Neath, 1996). If correct, the latter reasoning begins to explain why the widespread use of student evaluations in the United States in recent decades has been accompanied by increases in the average grades that university students received. To prevent grade inflation, and particularly to avoid rewarding and promoting instructors who use increasingly lax grading standards, administrators should adjust student ratings of instructional quality for the average grades given for a course. In general, only courses near the extremely high and low ends in terms of students' average grades were significantly affected by the statistical adjustment.

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