They Love Me; They Love Me Not

Inside Higher Ed today steered me to the article below:

Students stretch truth on teacher evaluations, UNI professor's study finds

STACI HUPP • Des Moines Register • December 13, 2010

Dennis Clayson's college students have picked apart everything from his "impossible" tests to his choice of neckties. The University of Northern Iowa marketing professor says he doesn't take criticism personally when students grade him on teacher evaluations, but he has wondered: Do they always tell the truth? The answer is no, Clayson and a Southeastern Oklahoma State University marketing professor found, in what they say is the first study of its kind…

The good news: Students fib in some cases to make their instructors look good, the study shows. The bad news: More often, they do it to punish professors they don't like. "Students are very generous, but they'll zap you," said Clayson, whose study will be published next year in Marketing Education Review, an education journal. He said the study was produced at no charge. The findings are sure to stoke an age-old debate over the fairness of teacher evaluations, which factor into pay raises and promotion and tenure decisions…

The stakes are even higher in classes where instructors dumb down their classes or inflate grades to boost the odds that students will like them. The practice is widely acknowledged by professors and has been studied by researchers, including Duke University statisticians who found professors who give better grades get higher marks on evaluations…

Full article at http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20101213/NEWS02/12130319/1001/NEWS/Students-stretch-truth-on-teacher-evaluations-UNI-professor-s-study-finds