On Campus

Students lie on evalutions

‘Students are very generous, but they’ll zap you’

Students lie on teaching evaluations, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Northern Iowa and Southeastern Oklahoma State University. Of the students surveyed at both institutions approximately one third said that they had lied or stretched the truth on a student evaluation, while 56 per cent said they knew someone who had lied. In most instances, the study found, students aren’t truthful when they don’t like a particular professor. “Students are very generous, but they’ll zap you,” Dennis Clayson, one of the papers coauthors says. Clayson, who has spent several years studying teacher evaluations said he has seen comments as bad as “Die, you son of a b****.” The paper will be published next year in the Marketing Education Review.

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