Abstract

Student evaluations of teaching may be subject to halo effects, where answers to one question are contaminated by answers to the other questions. Quantifying halo effects is difficult since correlation between answers may be due to underlying correlation of the items being tested. We use a novel identification procedure to test for a halo effect by combining a question on lecture-room capacity with objective information on the size of the lecture room. We confirm the presence of halo effects but show that the responses to the contaminated question remain informative. This suggests that the distortion in the evaluation questionnaires caused by halo effects need not be a concern for higher education institutions.

摘要

学生对教学的评价可能会受到光环效应的影响，其中一个问题的答案被其他问题的答案所污染。量化光环效应是困难的，因为答案之间的相关性可能是由于被测试项目的潜在相关性。我们使用一种新颖的识别程序来测试光环效应，方法是将关于教室容量的问题与关于教室大小的客观信息相结合。我们确认了光环效应的存在，但表明对受污染问题的回答仍然提供信息。这表明，光环效应导致的评估问卷失真不必成为高等教育机构的关注点。