Teaching survey evaluations scores and a lecturer's direct control of their performance: an empirical investigation

Teaching evaluation scores though often organisationally portrayed as an objective measure of teaching quality can also be legitimately seen as a measure of customer service satisfaction that occur within a service context. Within the customer service literature there is range of demographic, cultural and personality trait and service context variables that have been identified as explaining variation in customer service satisfaction ratings. These factors explained variation even when the customer service presentation is identical. This paper examines the possibility that such factors might also apply to teaching evaluations within a University setting. The sample was Business Postgraduate students (n= 548). The study found that 43.4% of the variation in teacher evaluations by student can be accounted for my factors beyond the direct control of the lecturer. Implications of these findings for the growing use of teaching evaluation scores are examined and recommendations for their appropriate use are identified.