AltInst: Regressions for Student Evaluations/Grades

Imagine a regression predicting student evaluations of teachers,
including terms not only for individual teachers, but also for
individual students, grades received, subject taught, time of day,
etc. Wouldn't a teacher's regression coefficient be a better measure
of their teaching quality than their average student evaluation?

Similarly, imagine a regression predicting student grades,
including terms not only for individual students, but also for
individual teachers, type of class, time of day, etc. Wouldn't
a student's regression coefficient be a better measure of their
school ability than a simple GPA?

I can't be the first person to have thought of or suggested this.
Regression aren't rocket science, and millions of people are now
running their lives around GPAs and student evaluations. So I
can't help but conclude that the people who could make this change
really don't care much about how good GPAs or student evaluations
are as measures of student or teacher quality.

Robin Hanson rhanson@gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu
Asst. Prof. Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323

[To drop AltInst, tell: majordomo@cco.caltech.edu to: unsubscribe altinst]
Received on Thu May 3 18:39:00 2001