COLLEGE-STUDENTS SELF-INSIGHT AND COMMON IMPLICIT THEORIES IN RATINGSOF TEACHING EFFECTIVENESS

The objectives of this study were to determine whether (a) students ha ve self-insight into how they make overall evaluations of teaching eff ectiveness, and (b) there is a reasonably high level of consensus amon g the student raters in making overall evaluations. A policy-capturing approach was used with 3 different college student groups (94 introdu ctory geology, 82 accounting, and 53 graduate education students) to d etermine the implicit and explicit weights of the teaching factors stu dents used in arriving at their overall evaluations. The results indic ated that the students had self-insight and a reasonably high level of consensus in making their overall evaluations, providing further evid ence of the validity of students' overall evaluations of teaching effe ctiveness.