Page | 1 THE INFLUENCE OF PERCEIVED INSTRUCTIONAL VARIABILITY ON STUDENT EVALUATIONS OF TEACHING Pookie Sautter, New Mexico State University Shaun McQuitty, New Mexico State University Michael R. Hyman, New Mexico State University (Published in Academy of Educational Leadership Journal, 7 (2), 67-74, 2004.) ABSTRACT Although many factors—such as expected grade and workload—are known to affect students’ perceptions of instructional quality over time, the effect of perceived variability in instructional quality on student evaluations of course quality, course value, and teaching effectiveness is unknown. An empirical study of students in an introductory marketing course suggests students who perceive greater variability in instructional quality give lower teaching evaluations. Instructors are advised to abate this risk by establishing students’ expectations and perceptions about quality consistency. INTRODUCTION Like other services, instructional delivery is inseparable from its consumption, which means both in-class and distance-ed students (service clients) experience this service as it is produced. Because instruct- tional delivery is a service, it is also char- acterized by performance heterogeneity or variability (e.g., Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry, 1985). The services marketing liter- ature suggests service variability can affect judgments of service encounters (Meyer, 1981; Rust, Inman, Jia and Zahorik, 1999), but little is known about the mechanism creating such judgments. In an educational setting, there are two sources of perceived service variability over time: (1) inter-class differences in the quality of instructors’ in- class performance; and (2) inter-class differences in students’ responses to in-class activities, students’ preparedness, students’ moods, and the like. We take a services marketing perspective and examine the relevance of perceived variability in instructional quality as a predictor of student ratings of course quality, course satisfaction, and the course instructor. Perceived value of a course is also introduced as a potential construct of interest, given its strong theoretical relation- ship to perceived quality in the broader services sector (Zeithaml, 1988). Our focus on perceived rather than actual variability is consistent with the measurement of other factors believed to affect students' ratings of instructional quality and effectiveness (Greenwald, 1997; Hobson and Talbot, 2001; McKeachie, 1997; Wachtel, 1998). Although there are objective measures of instructional quality (e.g., grading prompt- ness), students' subjective assessments inform their overall evaluations of teaching quality and effectiveness, i.e., SET scores. If perceived variability is related to SET scores, then instructors and administrators who want to improve instructional quality would benefit from understanding this relationship. EVALUATIVE JUDGMENTS AND SERVICE VARIABILITY The business literature in general, and the services marketing literature in particular,