Recency Effect in College Student Course Evaluations

Universities depend on faculty evaluations to substantiate tenure and promotion decisions and it is well known that student ratings are a critical source of information for this process. Of recent concern in course evaluations is recency effect, a rating error that occurs when more weight is assigne...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Practical assessment, research & evaluation research & evaluation, 2005-01, Vol.10, p.6
Main Authors: Dickey, David, Pearson, Carolyn
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Listening comprehension
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Summary:Universities depend on faculty evaluations to substantiate tenure and promotion decisions and it is well known that student ratings are a critical source of information for this process. Of recent concern in course evaluations is recency effect, a rating error that occurs when more weight is assigned to activities that are closer to the time of formal appraisal. Quantitative procedures used in this study revealed that students who were either trained in recency effect and kept a course diary or kept a course diary only were sensitive to this type of error on a measure of teaching skill, but not course organization. Qualitative procedures also revealed that students were aware of recency effect once it was defined.
ISSN:1531-7714