The Invisible Hands behind the Student Evaluation of Teaching: The Rise of the New Managerial Elite in the Governance of Higher Education

Abstract:

We contend that the notion of teaching effectiveness has no verifiable empirical content and therefore the question of teaching score validity is misguided. Universities create knowledge, invest in human capital, and grant degrees, yet teaching scores are ill equipped to capture and evaluate any of these outcomes. In spite of well-documented shortcomings, virtually all universities in North America use teaching scores because they allow the managerial elite to legitimize their control over the affairs of academia in the broader context of university governance. Using the enabling myth of teaching scores, the bureaucrats shift the focus from the investment in human capital to the granting of degrees in order to re-cast higher education into an authoritative, vertically organized hierarchy, better suited for managerial rent-extraction and entrenchment.

Keywords::

• Student evaluation of teaching
• conflict of interest
• university governance
• enabling myth
• negative economic externalities