Students' Evaluation of Teaching in Higher Education: experiences from four European countries and some implications of the practice

Abstract Mechanisms for the quality assessment of teaching in the higher education systems of the UK, The Netherlands, France and Germany give varying statuses to students’ assessment of teaching, specifically that done by means of questionnaires. Despite numerous assertions of the general validity of many aspects of such assessments, previous research — very little of which has been based upon the European experience — has nevertheless shown various biases in these evaluations (biases being defined as aspects of evaluation unrelated to the intrinsic characteristics of the teaching). It is also possible to hypothesise other sources of bias that are not analysed in depth in the existing literature; some of these may be specific to the higher education systems of individual countries. The possible existence of biases must necessarily entail some problems in the interpretation of questionnaire results and thus dilemmas in their application to decision‐making by institutions.