Using global student rating items for summative evaluation.

Research has established the multidimensional nature of student ratings of teaching, but debate continues concerning the use of multiple- versus single-item ratings for summative evaluation. In this study the usefulness of global items in predicting weighted-composite evaluations of teaching was evaluated with a sample of 17,183 classes from 105 institutions. In separate regression analyses containing 2 global items―one concerning the instructor, the other concerning the course―each global item accounted for more than 50% of the variance in the weightedcomposite criterion measure. Student, class, and method items generally added much less variance