Learning for today versus learning for tomorrow: Teaching evaluations

Really interesting set of experiments that give us new insight into the value of teaching evaluations.  The second is particularly striking and points to the difficulty of measuring teaching quality — good today isn’t the same as good tomorrow.

When you measure performance in the courses the professors taught i.e., how intro students did in intro, the less experienced and less qualified professors produced the best performance. They also got the highest student evaluation scores. But more experienced and qualified professors students did best in follow-on courses i.e., their intro students did best in advanced classes.The authors speculate that the more experienced professors tend to “broaden the curriculum and produce students with a deeper understanding of the material.” p. 430 That is, because they don’t teach directly to the test, they do worse in the short run but better in the long run.

via Do the Best Professors Get the Worst Ratings? | Psychology Today.