152 152 S tudent evaluation of courses and teaching is a contentious issue in higher education. Recent- ly, Côté and Allahar (2007) went as far as to assert that professorial fear of student evaluations is a ma- jor contributing factor to rampant grade inlation across North America. Controversy centres on the perceived validity of student course/teaching eval- uations: are students capable of providing accurate assessments of teaching ability and course content? he answer to this question has practical implications. For faculty, student evaluations can inluence promotion and tenure decisions. For stu- dents, evaluations may inluence course selection and are often the only opportunity they have to provide feedback on the quality of instruction. Furthermore, these evaluations may be growing in importance in a public policy context increasingly concerned with the ‘quality’ of higher education. his paper, based on a session given at the 2008 Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher 26 The Validity of Student Course Evaluations: An Eternal Debate? Pamela Gravestock University of Toronto Emily Greenleaf University of Toronto Andrew M. Boggs Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario Student evaluation of courses and teaching at universities remains a highly contentious and divisive topic. Emotions and anecdotal evidence can overrule conclusions drawn from research on the validity and design of course evaluations. However, even amongst researchers, there is signiicant disagreement on the eicacy of course and teaching evaluations. his paper explores this ongoing dialogue through the medium of a parliamentary debate drawing from the breadth of current research on course evaluations. Introduction