Abstract

It is difficult to assess the extent to which course evaluations reflect how much students truly learn from a course because valid measures of learning are rarely available. This paper makes use of a unique setting in which students take a common, high-stakes post-test which is centrally graded and serves as the basis for capturing actual student learning. We match these student-specific measures of learning to student-specific course evaluation scores from electronic records and a rich set of student-level covariates, including a pre-test score and other measures of skills prior to entering the course. While small in magnitude, we find a robust positive, and statistically significant, association between our measure of student learning and course evaluations.

Citation

Beleche, T., Fairris, D. & Marks, M. (2012). Do course evaluations truly reflect student learning? Evidence from an objectively graded post-test. Economics of Education Review, 31(5), 709-719. Elsevier Ltd. Retrieved August 17, 2024 from https://www.learntechlib.org/p/205801/.

Keywords

• A2
• Course Evaluations
• grades
• I23
• J24
• student learning