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The widespread use of student evaluations to rate faculty has raised the question of whether high student evaluations can be gained simply through the process of faculty giving higher grades to students, or whether learning of students is a critical factor in such evaluations. Four different models were tested which represented different relationships between students= expected student grades and student evaluations of the quality of instructors, with and without student motivation, ability, and amount learned as potentially important variables. Evaluations from 119 students of four different instructors were used for the data set. Statistical tests of the alternative models indicated that a more complex model incorporating student motivation and ability levels as factors affecting student evaluations of instructors provided the best fit to the data. The fit was superior to that of a model using only expected grades and student evaluations of instructors, indicating that students= evaluations of faculty did not appear to be based solely on the grades students expected to receive. The complex model also fit the data better than a simpler model using only perceived amount learned, expected grades, and instructor ratings. For this data set, instructor ratings were not simply a function of expected grades, or simply a function of perceived amount learned, but a function of motivation, ability, amount learned, and grades.

1Boy Crusoe

By Allan Eric

Also published as" A Yankee Crusoe" . A 15 year old hard working and studious farm boy finds the lure of adventure on the seas as a merchant seaman more than he can resist. This is his story. " I was born in a little town in the State of Maine, near the close of the Civil War. My boyhood life did not differ materially from that of the average farmer's son in the remote country districts of New England--except, perhaps, that I read more and thought more. Hard work on the rugged soil, two terms each year in the little yellow country schoolhouse, a day's fishing now and then filled the early years of my life full to over-flowing. " What he gets is enough excitement and adventure to overflow his wildest dreams. How he experiences disaster and uses his wits and knowledge to overcome every problem makes for a great read. - Summary by Phil Chenevert