| Abstract: |
It is difficult to measure teaching quality at the postsecondary level because
students typically "self-select" their coursework and their professors.
Despite this, student evaluations of professors are widely used in faculty
promotion and tenure decisions. We exploit the random assignment of college
students to professors in a large body of required coursework to examine how
professor quality affects student achievement. Introductory course professors
significantly affect student achievement in contemporaneous and follow-on
related courses, but the effects are quite heterogeneous across subjects.
Students of professors who as a group perform well in the initial mathematics
course perform significantly worse in follow-on related math, science, and
engineering courses. We find that the academic rank, teaching experience, and
terminal degree status of mathematics and science professors are negatively
correlated with contemporaneous student achievement, but positively related to
follow-on course achievement. Across all subjects, student evaluations of
professors are positive predictors of contemporaneous course achievement, but
are poor predictors of follow-on course achievement. |