Teaching effectiveness, impression management, and dysfunctional behavior: Student evaluation of teaching control data

Student evaluation of teaching (SET) questionnaires are used in many countries, although much current research questions the validity of these surveys. US research indicates that more than 90 percent of academic accounting departments use this performance measurement. This paper aims to focus on the validity of SET data.

A mail survey was sent to a random sample of 1,000 accounting professors employed at four‐year universities and colleges in the USA. A total of 447 responses were returned for a response rate of 44.7 percent. Statistical results of the survey for data are reported.

Instructors engage in impression management when SET data are used for control purposes. Dysfunctional behavior of accounting instructors includes easy grading, inflating grades, course work deflation, and other defensive strategies which result in negative social implications. A significant 53 percent of the accounting instructors knew of other professors who have reduced grading standards and course content in order to improve SET scores.

Universities worldwide risk legal action when they defame faculty members by releasing unreliable and invalid SET results.

The paper illustrates some of the present problems with SET questionnaires.