ABSTRACT
Do academic rigor and grades change the evaluations?
Many faculty members hold the opinion that students will give lower evaluations to classes which are more difficult than normative courses. Some have even suggested that students will utilize SET as a means of punishing instructors who maintain high standards. In fact, students are strongly attracted to courses with lenient grading standards. This is an important issue because it has been shown to influence instructors’ behavior. Rigor (work load and grading standards) is a controversial issue. Some maintain there is a positive relationship between it and SET. Others claim the relationship is negative. However, rigor is an interactive variable. Its impact is due to its effect on grades, fairness, and even student personality. Grading impact on the evaluations was also assumed to be low, but more recent research has found substantial relationships. Evidence exists that part of the grade-evaluation association is due to the leniency of the instructor and attribution. However, reciprocity is the only hypothesis which conforms to all the data. Students have a tendency to give an instructor what they received. The cause of the rigor-grade-evaluation relationship is complex, but it appears to be largely related to students’ perception of expected norms.
