Should Students Be Able To Grade Their Teachers

It is teachers who have always graded students to determine whether the students grasped the course content. Teachers teach, and at the end of the syllabus, they test their students to establish whether the students have met the learning outcomes or not. In many instances, the performance of the students it also the main tool used to assess a teacher's success at teaching his/her charges. Such assessment could be effective if the testing of the students is done by a third party and the result compared to expected standards of performance. In their regard, it is possible to state whether the teacher was effective at teaching the course content or not. Assessing or testing teachers is very critical but standardized testing of the students is not an adequate measure on which a teacher’s teaching ability can be measured. There are several teacher-evaluating approaches that teachers use to evaluate themselves and their colleagues, but none is as controversial as students grading the teachers. Grading teachers means the students give a grade to the teachers based on how the teachers’ teaching approaches impacted on their learning. The controversy surrounding this issue is whether students should be allowed to grade their teachers or not. Students grading teachers only provides an opportunity for students to express how they feel about their teachers, but will not fairly capture the teachers’ performance and ability. Therefore, students should not be allowed to grade their teachers. 

It is important to note that students do not have adequate knowledge about pedagogy that can enable them to evaluate their teachers effectively. In order to rate someone at something, one must be an expert at it to know and provide reasons why they rate some aspects high and others low. Students have no training in teaching and thus have no idea of what teaching is (Mooney, 2013). They have no grasp of what they would be rating or grading. Teachers went to college and learned how to teach and grade students properly. To ensure that teachers do their jobs well, supervisors went to college to learn how to train and grade the teachers (Bunge, 2018). Therefore, if there is a need to grade the teachers, the supervisors are effectively trained and equipped to perform the task (Bunge, 2018). Allowing the students to grade their teachers gives them the role of the supervisors. The student will fail at this role since they have no training on how to grade teachers (Carpenter, Wilford, Kornell, & Mullaney, 2013). The grades the students assign to the teachers will only reflect how fond they are of certain teachers over others (Braga, Paccagnella, & Pellizzari, 2014). Making students the supervisors over their teachers gives them a lot of authority over their teachers. With such authority, the students may erroneously start to consider themselves equal to the teachers and other staff at the institution (Bunge, 2018). Such an arrangement would demoralize teachers and even affect the quality of education. 

Although they cannot be supervisors, students may be perceived as consumers of education. Thus, they may be approached from the angle of consumers rating the utility of a product they consume. However, students are still not reliable. Students tend to be harsh and vindictive when they have personal problems with their teachers. The students may also be harsh towards a teacher if they do not perform well in that teacher's class. Students who have a negative attitude towards a subject may be influenced by their attitude to grade the teacher who teaches the subject poorly (Terry, Heitner, Miller, & Hollis, 2017). If such students got the opportunity to grade the teachers, they will base their grades on their failed relationship with the teachers. Such grades would not reflect the teachers’ teaching abilities and would demoralize them. Notably, learners can demonstrate many prejudices and biases on their teachers too (Carpenter, Wilford, Kornell, & Mullaney, 2013). Many cannot appreciate the privilege they get to give their teachers feedback and improve how the teacher teaches them. They may treat the opportunity as a joke.

Student assessments rarely capture the teachers’ performance. Most students are yet to achieve the maturity to make decisions, such as judging the performance of adults. Very few students can be trusted to assess their peers and provide an objective assessment of the qualities they think their peers possess. It would be a huge task to expect them to rate adults fairly, and thus teachers. College and University students, on the other hand, may have achieved maturity and may have the ability to evaluate and grade their instructors. However, they also show the biases demonstrated by younger students since they also rate their teachers based on the grades they score in these teachers' courses (Terry, Heitner, Miller, & Hollis, 2017; MacNell, Driscoll, & Hunt, 2014; Benton & Cashin, 2012). They favorably evaluate the teachers who give them high grades. A study to determine whether teachers who were rated highly by college students were high performers revealed that the results of the rating depending on the point at which the teacher’s evaluation is done during the semester (Kornell & Hausman, 2016). According to Kornell & Hausman (2016), when the students learning was evaluated using a test at the end of the course, the teachers who received higher ratings tended to be those that contributed the more learning. However, when learning was evaluated as performance in subsequent courses, the teachers that got low ratings seemed to be the most effective (Kornell & Hausman, 2016). Kornell & Hausman's (2016) findings are an indication that teachers who receive low ratings seem to use unpopular approaches to the students yet it is these approaches that enhance learning. In this regard, student grading of the teachers is unreliable measures of teacher performance. 

Allowing students to grade teaches will, in the long-run, impact negatively on the students. Teachers can easily figure out that their students favorably rate teachers who inflate the student’s grades (Bunge, 2018). The may become lenient on the student to ensures the students evaluate them favorably. Other than teaching students, the teachers are also interested in keeping their jobs and progressing in their careers. If giving students high grades is the best way to get rated fairly and progress in their career or keep their jobs, the teachers will inflate their students’ grades (Bunge, 2018). Such dynamics would undermine the quality of education that students receive since the standards of education would decline despite the costs being high (Bunge, 2018). This shift in education would be a result of learning institutions wanting to please students since they will consider students as customers that must be kept happy. 

On the other hand, the students can lay the responsibility for their academic success of teachers. The students become reluctant to engage in the learning process and classroom activities, such as classroom discussions (Bunge, 2018). In response, demoralized teachers become reluctant to punish such behaviors since the students may retaliate by rating them poorly. The study can refuse to study what they consider boring and inhibit the teacher from sticking the course syllabus. At the end of the course, the teacher inflates the student’s grades and the students respond by giving him/her a favorable evaluation. However, the quality of the education the students receive is compromised. 

Notably, many people feel that students should be able to grade their teachers. According to Mooney (2013), it is possible to achieve an effective assessment of a teacher’s effectiveness by combining the student’s classroom achievement and their observations. Proponents believe that the students’ assessments provide school administrations with valuable insight teachers are supporting his or her charges. The proponents believe that when asked the right questions in a survey, the students can provide accurate information on the quality of the teaching they are receiving from their teachers. Although research has indicated the possibility of using student surveys on multiple items to evaluate teachers, it has also shown that the implementation of such surveys is difficult (Mooney, 2013). Furthermore, it worth noting the survey is resistant to respondents' biases. Irrespective of how the institutions attempt to make the surveys objective, the students’ biases and emotions will still get in the way (Benton & Cashin, 2012; MacNell, Driscoll, & Hunt, 2014; Mooney, 2013) also acknowledge that the survey cannot be used as a tool for calculating the teachers’ final rating.

There is a notion that since students spend more time with the teachers than supervisors, they are in a position to provide a more accurate rating of the teachers’ performance compared to the supervisors. Unfortunately, this notion ignores the fact that the students have no formal training on how to assess teachers. They have limited pedagogical knowledge to enable them to assess their teachers. 

Although student feedback can enable school administrators and whether the students are learning from the teaching activities, students should not be allowed to grade their teachers. Any possible gains that would arise from such an exercise are negated by the fact that the students have no ability or knowhow on how to rate teachers. The rating the students provide may be heavily influenced by their attitudes towards their teachers or the subjects. Allowing students to gain an oversight role over their educators can demoralize the educators, and result in the deterioration in the quality of the education in the schools. The quality may further deteriorate when the students become arrogant and stop playing their role as learners. They lay the responsibility for their academic success on the teachers. Evaluating and rating teachers is an important way of how positively their teaching impacts on the learners. However, students grading of their teachers should not be used as that primary tool for evaluating teachers. It is unreliable and inconsistent.

Annotated Bibliography

Mooney, J. (2013). Should students grade their teachers? The Hechinger Report . Retrieved from https://hechingerreport.org/should-students-grade-their-teachers/

In this report, Mooney (2013) addresses the debate on whether students should grade their teachers or not. Mooney (2013) discusses the results of different studies on how students can participate in the grading of their teachers. According to the article, there there are multiple measures that can be used to facilitate students to rate their teachers. When fabricated properly, multiple measures can be used to collects information about teachers from students, including kindergarten kids. Mooney (2013) also addresses the ability of student-teacher grading to capture the teacher’s performance effectively. Mooney's (2013) report is a source of information on approaches to student-teacher grading, and its positive and negative outcomes. 

Kornell, N., & Hausman, H. (2016). Do the Best Teachers Get the Best Ratings? Frontiers in psychology, 7 , 570. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00570

Kornell & Hausman (2016) address the question of whether student ratings can accurately capture the teachers' performance. According to Kornell & Hausman (2016), the accuracy of the student ratings varies with the time at which that ratings are done. Students may rate teachers poorly during the course and highly after the course. The teachers who received a low rating from the students also tended to be the high performers. Kornell & Hausman's (2016) article is critical for understanding the reasons for students providing different ratings. It also facilitates the assessment of the reliability of students’ evaluations of their teachers.

Bunge, N. (2018, November 27). Students Evaluating Teachers Doesn’t Just Hurt Teachers. It Hurts Students. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from https://www.chronicle.com/article/Students-Evaluating-Teachers/245169

This article evaluates the negative effects that arise when students are allowed to evaluate their teachers. According to Bunge (2018), when students are allowed to evaluate their teachers, they suffer negative outcomes due to the way they conduct the evaluations and the way the teachers respond. Students, in most instances, rate favorable teachers who give them high scores. Teachers respond by inflating students’ scores. The students further become complacent and leave responsibility for their academic performance in the hands of their students. As a result, their academic performance deteriorates. 

Braga, M., Paccagnella, M., & Pellizzari, M. (2014). Evaluating students’ evaluations of professors. Econ. Educ. Rev. 41 (2014); 71–88. 10.1016/j.econedurev.2014.04.002

In this article, the researchers report the findings of their study in which they contrasted the effectiveness of students' ratings of their teachers against the existing administrative data at the Bocconi University in Italy. According to Braga, Paccagnella, & Pellizzari (2014), their results negatively correlated with the students' ratings. The teachers whom the researchers rated highly, the students rated poorly. The students rated teachers based on whether they liked a teacher’s teaching approach on not. They did not base their rating on whether a teacher's teaching approach was effective or ineffective. Teachers can engage in teaching-to-the-test or real teaching. Teaching-to-the-test guarantees higher grades but does not enhance students learning outcomes. Based on their evaluations, Braga, Paccagnella, & Pellizzari (2014) provide information necessary for understanding students' motivations when rating their teachers. 

Carpenter S. K., Wilford M. M., Kornell N., Mullaney K. M. (2013). Appearances can be deceiving: instructor fluency increases perceptions of learning without increasing actual learning. Psychon. Bull. Rev. 20 (6); 1350–1356. 10.3758/s13423-013-0442-z

Carpenter, Wilford, Kornell, & Mullaney (2013) article evaluated the influence of fluency on students’ metacognitive awareness and regulation. The students rated the fluent instructor favorably over the disfluent instructor using contemporary teaches evaluation questions. They scored the fluent instructor fairly on effectiveness and preparedness. They also indicated that their learning was significantly higher from the fluent instructor. On the other hand, the instructor’s fluency or disfluency did not impact on the amount of information the students grasped. In this regard, the students did not rank the two instructors based on what they learned from the lecturer, and rather they ranked the lecturers based on how their fluency influenced their (students’) perceptions. This article provides information that proves students' biases negatively impact on their rating of their teachers.

Terry, C. B., Heitner, K. L., Miller, L. A., & Hollis, C. (2017). Predictive Relationships Between Students' Evaluation Ratings and Course Satisfaction. American journal of pharmaceutical education, 81 (3), 53. doi:10.5688/ajpe81353

Terry, Heitner, Miller, & Hollis’ (2017) article evaluates the effectiveness of student evaluations based on their validity and reliability. Their study reported a significant bivariate relationship between eight variables used to evaluate courses and the overall variables used to rate the course. 

MacNell L., Driscoll A., Hunt A. N. (2014). What’s in a name: exposing gender bias in student ratings of teaching.  Innov. Higher Educ. 40 (4) 1–13. 10.1007/s10755-014-9313-4 

MacNell, Driscoll, & Hunt (2014) acknowledge the influence of gender in the ratings that students give their teachers. They conducted a study to evaluate the level of influence of gender bias on the student rating of the teachers. They disguised the gender of instructors online and had them teach while assuming different genders in different occasions. The students rated male teachers highly regardless of whether the actual people behind the gender were females. MacNell, Driscoll, & Hunt's (2014) article is a good source for understanding has biases can influence students rating of their instructors and provide the instructors with inaccurate grades.

Benton S. L., Cashin W. E. (2012). Student Ratings of Teaching: A Summary of Research and Literature. IDEA PAPER #50. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/31896053/Student_Ratings_of_Teaching_A_Summary_of_Research_and_Literature

Benton & Cashin (2012) provided a summary of research and literature on factors the influence students rating of their teachers. They noted that multiple factors and biases influence how the students rate the teachers. The factors include the instructor’s age and experience, gender, race, personal characteristics, research and productivity, rank in the faculty, course level class size among others. Student related factors include age, race, gender, workload, the purpose for grading, academic discipline, course level, expected grades, student motivation, and time of the day, among others. This source provides a list of factors that can influence students’ biases

References

Benton S. L., Cashin W. E. (2012). Student Ratings of Teaching: A Summary of Research and Literature. IDEA PAPER #50. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/31896053/Student_Ratings_of_Teaching_A_Summary_of_Research_and_Literature

Braga, M., Paccagnella, M., & Pellizzari, M. (2014). Evaluating students’ evaluations of professors. Econ. Educ. Rev. 41 (2014); 71–88. 10.1016/j.econedurev.2014.04.002

Bunge, N. (2018, November 27). Students Evaluating Teachers Doesn’t Just Hurt Teachers. It Hurts Students. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from https://www.chronicle.com/article/Students-Evaluating-Teachers/245169

Carpenter S. K., Wilford M. M., Kornell N., Mullaney K. M. (2013). Appearances can be deceiving: instructor fluency increases perceptions of learning without increasing actual learning. Psychon. Bull. Rev. 20 (6); 1350–1356. 10.3758/s13423-013-0442-z

Kornell, N., & Hausman, H. (2016). Do the Best Teachers Get the Best Ratings? Frontiers in psychology, 7 , 570. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00570

MacNell L., Driscoll A., Hunt A. N. (2014). What’s in a name: exposing gender bias in student ratings of teaching.  Innov. Higher Educ. 40 (4) 1–13. 10.1007/s10755-014-9313-4 

Mooney, J. (2013). Should students grade their teachers? The Hechinger Report . Retrieved from https://hechingerreport.org/should-students-grade-their-teachers/

Terry, C. B., Heitner, K. L., Miller, L. A., & Hollis, C. (2017). Predictive Relationships Between Students' Evaluation Ratings and Course Satisfaction. American Journal Of Pharmaceutical Education, 81 (3), 53. doi:10.5688/ajpe81353