Students’ evaluations of teaching (SETs) have been used as a primary means of evaluating the teaching quality at postsecondary institutions for a number of years. The research in this area has been consistently expanding in an effort to validate its use and efficacy. To date, there has been little consensus regarding the validity of these evaluations, especially with regards to the possible impact of extraneous factors. Researchers have previously found evidence of a link between the self-serving bias and grade expectations. The present study used an experimental design to examine the validity of SETs in the context of the self-serving bias. According to the self-serving bias, individuals will be more likely to attribute success internally but attribute failure externally. Specifically, the present study examined whether there were differences in the presence of the self-serving bias in relation to self-reported narcissism and shyness. Students at a large university aged 17 - 46 (N = 563) were asked to write a short essay on euthanasia and were randomly assigned to one of two conditions. In the first condition, students were assigned a low grade; in the second condition, they were assigned a high grade. When they were given their essay grade back, students had an opportunity to rate their evaluator. Results indicated that students were more likely to externalize their essay grade when in the negative condition whereby they attributed their grade to reasons outside their control versus the positive condition, irrespective of their level of self-reported narcissism or shyness. These results suggest that the self-serving bias does exist within SETs and calls into question the validity of these evaluations. The findings from this study highlight the need for further research into the role that student characteristics play with regards to SETs.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/31364 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Staddon, Melissa |
| Contributors | Vaillancourt, Tracy |
| Publisher | Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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