ABSTRACT
What are the justifications and implications of the Likability Hypothesis?
Looking through the SET literature, a pattern begins to emerge. It is possible to predict research outcomes or to explain inconsistencies by looking at the evaluations, not as a measure of teaching, but as an indicator of what students like and dislike? The current SET process attempts to measure instruction without ironically attempting to measure student behavior. The research supports, and this chapter argues, that the closest universal term captured by the SET process and expressed in its scales is “likability.” The evaluations do not directly measure the instructor or the instructor’s teaching. The evaluation of a class is an averaged measure of student perceptions filtered through an assessment instrument. The chapter defends the hypothesis with research, statistical, and philosophical arguments, and outlines extensive areas of research opened up by the hypothesis. It avoids problematic aspects of the SET paradigm, which for decades required explanations of both research and application to conform to appropriate ideology, even when, in many cases, it was not warranted by research or practical experience.
