IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pie/dsedps/2017-225.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET), social influence dynamics, and teachers' choices: An evolutionary model

Author

Listed:
  • Angelo Antoci
  • Irene Brunetti
  • Pierluigi Sacco
  • Mauro Sodini

Abstract

The issue of student evaluation of teachers (SET) has been explored by a large literature across many decades. However, the role of social influence factors in determining teachers' responses to a given incentive and evaluation framework has been left basically unexplored. This paper makes a first attempt in this vein by considering an evolutionary game-theoretic context where teachers face a two-stage process where their rating depends on both students' evaluation of their course and on retrospective students' evaluation of their teaching output in view of students' performance in a related follow-up course. We find that both high effort (difficult course offered) and low effort (easy course effort) outcomes may emerge, and that may either lead to a socially optimal outcome for teachers or not, according to cases. Moreover, there may be a potential conflict between the optimal outcome for students and for teachers. We also consider possible ways to generalize our model in future research.

Suggested Citation

  • Angelo Antoci & Irene Brunetti & Pierluigi Sacco & Mauro Sodini, 2017. "Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET), social influence dynamics, and teachers' choices: An evolutionary model," Discussion Papers 2017/225, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
    • Handle: RePEc:pie:dsedps:2017/225
    Note: ISSN 2039-1854
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ec.unipi.it/documents/Ricerca/papers/2017-225.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Braga, Michela & Paccagnella, Marco & Pellizzari, Michele, 2014. "Evaluating students’ evaluations of professors," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 71-88.
    2. William E. Becker & William Bosshardt & Michael Watts, 2012. "How Departments of Economics Evaluate Teaching," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(3), pages 325-333, July.
    3. Correa, Hector, 2003. "A game theoretical analysis of the educational impact of differences in the abilities and work ethics of teachers and students," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 249-263, July.
    4. Brown, Byron W. & Saks, Daniel H., 1987. "The microeconomics of the allocation of teachers' time and student learning," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 319-332, August.
    5. Lisa Chauvet & Paul Collier & Andreas Fuster, 2015. "Supervision and Project Performance: A Principal-Agent Approach," Working Papers DT/2015/04, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    6. Scott E. Carrell & James E. West, 2010. "Does Professor Quality Matter? Evidence from Random Assignment of Students to Professors," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(3), pages 409-432, June.
    7. Correa, Hector & Gruver, Gene W., 1987. "Teacher-student interaction: A game theoretic extension of the economic theory of education," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 19-47, February.
    8. Catsiapis, George, 1987. "A Model of Educational Investment Decisions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 69(1), pages 33-41, February.
    9. Cho, Donghun & Baek, Wonyoung & Cho, Joonmo, 2015. "Why do good performing students highly rate their instructors? Evidence from a natural experiment," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 172-179.
    10. Boring, Anne, 2017. "Gender biases in student evaluations of teaching," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 27-41.
    11. Ewing, Andrew M., 2012. "Estimating the impact of relative expected grade on student evaluations of teachers," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 141-154.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Angelo Antoci & Irene Brunetti & Pierluigi Sacco & Mauro Sodini, 2021. "Student evaluation of teaching, social influence dynamics, and teachers’ choices: An evolutionary model," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 325-348, January.
    2. Michela Braga & Marco Paccagnella & Michele Pellizzari, 2016. "The Impact of College Teaching on Students’ Academic and Labor Market Outcomes," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(3), pages 781-822.
    3. Michela Braga & Marco Paccagnella & Michele Pellizzari, 2014. "The academic and labor market returns of university professors," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 981, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    4. Rieger, Matthias & Voorvelt, Katherine, 2016. "Gender, ethnicity and teaching evaluations: Evidence from mixed teaching teamsAuthor-Name: Wagner, Natascha," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 79-94.
    5. Anna Salomons & Maarten Goos, 2014. "Measuring Teaching Quality in Higher Education: Assessing the Problem of Selection Bias in Course Evaluations," Working Papers 14-16, Utrecht School of Economics.
    6. Buurman, Margaretha & Delfgaauw, Josse & Dur, Robert & Zoutenbier, Robin, 2020. "When do teachers respond to student feedback? Evidence from a field experiment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    7. Maarten Goos & Anna Salomons, 2017. "Measuring teaching quality in higher education: assessing selection bias in course evaluations," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 58(4), pages 341-364, June.
    8. Wagner, N. & Rieger, M. & Voorvelt, K.J., 2016. "Gender, ethnicity and teaching evaluations : Evidence from mixed teaching teams," ISS Working Papers - General Series 617, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS), The Hague.
    9. Radchenko, Natalia, 2020. "Biases in Student Evaluations of Teaching: An American Case Study," IZA Discussion Papers 13603, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Cannon, Edmund & Cipriani, Giam Pietro, 2021. "Gender Differences in Student Evaluations of Teaching: Identification and Consequences," IZA Discussion Papers 14387, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Anne Boring, 2015. "Gender Biases in student evaluations of teachers," Documents de Travail de l'OFCE 2015-13, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE).
    12. Friederike Mengel & Jan Sauermann & Ulf Zölitz, 2019. "Gender Bias in Teaching Evaluations," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(2), pages 535-566.
    13. Rodríguez, Rosa & Rubio, Gonzalo, 2016. "Teaching quality and academic research," International Review of Economics Education, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 10-27.
    14. Ali Palali & Roel van Elk & Jonneke Bolhaar & Iryna Rud, 2017. "Are good researchers also good teachers? The relationship between research quality and teaching quality," CPB Discussion Paper 347, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    15. Keng, Shao-Hsun, 2020. "Gender bias and statistical discrimination against female instructors in student evaluations of teaching," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    16. Martin Flegl & Robert Hlavatý, 2022. "Understanding transitions in professors’ evaluation: the application of Markov chain," OPSEARCH, Springer;Operational Research Society of India, vol. 59(1), pages 304-323, March.
    17. Ali Palali & Roel van Elk & Jonneke Bolhaar & Iryna Rud, 2017. "Are good researchers also good teachers? The relationship between research quality and teaching quality," CPB Discussion Paper 347.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    18. Berezvai, Zombor, 2023. "Az érdemjegy torzító hatása a hallgatói véleményezési rendszerekben. Egy természetes kísérlet eredményei [How to reduce the grade bias in student evaluation systems? A natural experiment]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(7), pages 795-812.
    19. Donghun Cho & Joonmo Cho, 2017. "Does More Accurate Knowledge of Course Grade Impact Teaching Evaluation?," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 12(2), pages 224-240, Spring.
    20. Gorry, Devon, 2017. "The impact of grade ceilings on student grades and course evaluations: Evidence from a policy change," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 133-140.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Student evaluation of teachers (SET); teacher effort; teacher motivation; social selection; strategic interaction between teachers.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games
    • D79 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Other

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pie:dsedps:2017/225. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dspisit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.