Making Sense of Today's Use of Student Evaluations of Teaching (SET)

Uttl (this issue) argues that scores from Student Evaluations of Teaching (SET) must not be used for making high-stakes career decisions because they are not predictive of effective teaching or of teacher effectiveness. I note in this article that teaching effectiveness can be operationalized with reference to outcomes like student test performance, with reference to processes like student engagement and motivation, or with reference to personal experiences like student satisfaction with courses and teachers. I argue that the latter of these alternatives is prioritized in today's higher education marketplace, and this explains developments like grade inflation and course workload deflation because both are effective in elevating student satisfaction rating. By contrast to Uttl, I argue that as indicators of students' satisfaction with courses and teachers, SET scores are valid and their use for career decision-making is understandable and defensible.