The influence of differing administrative instructions on student ratings of instructors

Sections taught by ten graduate teaching assistants were randomly assigned to one of three treatment conditions consisting of instructions about how student raitngs of their instructional effectiveness would be used: for administrative purposes, to fulfill a regulation (proforma), or for self‐improvement. While students were more harsh in their assessment of their instructors’ effectiveness when instructions suggested an administrative use of the ratings, these differences were not large—accounting for, at most, less than three percent of the variance.