Professor Qualities and Student Achievement

Abstract

M5S3G7 CanadaThis paper analyzes the importance of teacher quality at the college level. Instructors are matched to objective and subjective characteristics of teacher quality to estimate the impact of rank, salary, and perceived effectiveness on student performance and subject interest. Student and course fixed effects, time of day and week controls, and students' lack of knowledge about first-year instructors help minimize selection biases. Subjective teacher evaluations perform well in measuring instructor influences on students while objective characteristics such as rank and salary do not. Overall, the importance of college instructor differences is small, but important outliers exist.JEL No. I2, H4

Effects of professorial tenure on undergraduate ratings of teaching performance

“…As previously mentioned, Hoffmann and Oreopoulos (2009) find that subjective mean ratings can explain differences in student achievement among instructors. They explain that subjective student ratings have little to no relationship with faculty rank or salary but can explain some variation in student course-taking behavior and achievement.…”

“…Bettinger and Long (2010) show that adjuncts can have positive effects in increasing subsequent enrollments in some disciplines but not in others. In contrast, Hoffmann and Oreopoulos (2009) argue that faculty rank in itself may not play a crucial role in teacher quality or student outcomes. Subjective student ratings are a better predictor of student exam scores, subsequent course enrollment, and dropout rates than objective instructor characteristics, such as rank, status, and salary.…”

Beyond Admissions: Reflections and Future Considerations

“…Using the basic framework of an educational production function, institutions supply inputs such as faculty, class size, and student supports, which help determine the educational process and resulting outcomes of students. Past work has established the important role of faculty, and different types of instructors may be more or less effective in helping students learn (Bettinger and Long forthcoming;Hoffman and Oreopoulos 2009;Ehrenberg and Zhang 2005). Particularly for minorities, the race or gender of an instructor may influence course selection and major choice, particularly in fields in which students of color and women are underrepresented (Bettinger and Long 2005a).…”

Contingent Instructors and Student Outcomes: An Artifact or a Fact?

“…Similarly, institutions with higher shares of contingent instructors are likely to be systematically different from institutions with lower shares of such instructors. Hoffmann and Oreopoulos (2006) suggest that a negative relationship between student persistence and adjunct usage in institution-level studies could be driven by the tendency for schools with higher proportion of adjuncts to have students on the margin of dropping out.…”