Student evaluations of teaching, or SET, aren’t short on critics. Many professors and other experts say they’re unreliable — they may hurt female and minority professors, for example. One recent metastudy also suggested that past analyses linking student achievement to strong evaluation scores are flawed, a mere “artifact of small-sample-sized studies and publication bias.”
Now one of the authors of that metastudy is back for more, with a new analysis suggesting that SET ratings vary by course subject, with professors of math-related fields bearing the brunt of the effect.
“Professors teaching quantitative courses are far more likely not to receive tenure, promotion and/or merit pay when their performance is evaluated against common standards,” reads the study, co-written by SET skeptic Bob Uttl, professor of psychology at Mount Royal University in Canada.
