How Do We Rate? An Evaluation of Online Student Evaluations

This paper analyses the popular RateMyProfessors (RMP) website where students evaluate instructors in higher education. A study was designed to measure (1) the awareness and utilisation of the RMP website, (2) the internal and external validity of the RMP ratings in measuring teaching effectiveness, and (3) variation in the above across disciplines. It is concluded that the category of ratings, created by the website, establishes an anti-intellectual tone that manifests itself in comments about instructors' personality, easiness of workload and entertainment value rather than knowledge attained. (Contains 3 figures, 3 tables, and 5 notes.)