SELF‐RATINGS OF COLLEGE TEACHERS: A COMPARISON WITH STUDENT RATINGS

Abstract

College teachers’ self‐ratings were investigated in this study by comparing them to ratings given by students. The sample consisted of 343 teaching faculty from five colleges; these teachers, as well as the students in one of their classes, responded to a 21‐item instructional report questionnaire. Teacher self‐ratings had only a modest relationship with the ratings given by students (a median correlation of .21 for the items). In addition to the general lack of agreement between self and student evaluations, there was also a tendency for teachers as a group to give themselves better ratings than their students did.Discrepancies between individual teacher ratings and ratings given by the class were further analyzed for: (a) sex of the teacher (no difference found); (b) number of years of teaching experience (no difference); and (c) subject area of the course (differences noted for natural science courses vs. those in education and applied areas).