ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the thorny and multidimensional ethical issues around student evaluations of teaching (SET). With every end of semester comes a variety of closure experiences, and among those hallowed rituals is the administration of SET. The creation of SET can be traced back to the 1920s, and is generally attributed to Herman Remmers' work at Purdue University. Only a handful of universities collected SET data through the 1940s and 1950s, but student demands for more instructor information pushed SET usage into many institutions in the 1960s. Some of the people who would like access to SET information lack the context by which to interpret the data with integrity. There are sometimes competing concerns among stakeholders. For example, SET ratings are not generally released to students in the same way that performance ratings are usually kept between employee and manager. Professors have a right to performance information being kept close at hand, for sure.
