The Effect of Anonymity and Increased Accountability on the Linguistic Complexity of Teaching Evaluations

ABSTRACT

We examined the impact of anonymity and accountability on the linguistic complexity of teacher-evaluation questionnaires. Undergraduate students volunteered to participate in a study that assessed the evaluations of their instructors. Subjects were asked to complete two closed-ended and one open-ended questionnaire(s) evaluating their general psychology professor. Anonymity and accountability were manipulated in the questionnaire instructions. Consistent with previous findings, few significant anonymity differences occurred on the closed-ended questionnaires. There was, however, some evidence that increases in accountability and a reduction in anonymity were related to the increased linguistic complexity of responses on the open-ended questionnaire.