Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education Volume 6 Number 2 July 2008 Printed in the U.S.A. EMPIRICAL RESEARCH An Evaluation of Factors Regarding Students’ Assessment of Faculty in a Business School * Richard L. Peterson, Mark L. Berenson, † Ram B. Misra, and David J. Radosevich Department of Management & Information Systems, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ 07043, e-mail: petersonr@mail.montclair.edu, berensonm@mail.montclair.edu, misrar@mail.montclair.edu, radosevichd@mail.montclair.edu ABSTRACT Student faculty ratings are used at most institutions of higher learning for three impor- tant reasons. First, the ratings provide direct feedback to the faculty, and this enables faculty to adjust their teaching styles. Second, the ratings provide the administration with information intended to assist in guiding and mentoring faculty toward more ef- fective pedagogical performance in the classroom. Third, the ratings also provide the administration with information to be used in the reappointment, tenure, and promotion processes, as well as for assignment of salary range adjustments and teaching awards. To be of real value, however, all of this is predicated on the use of a valid and reli- able faculty-rating instrument along with a system designed to provide both the faculty and the administration with norming reports that allow for appropriate comparisons of ratings. This article reports such a study conducted within a large department of a busi- ness school and recommends that the process used be adapted by other business school departments and other academic units across the university and at other universities to ensure a more universally appropriate usage of students’ ratings. Subject Areas: Norming Report, Rating Instrument, and Student Faculty Ratings. INTRODUCTION Brightman (2005) discusses the importance of mentoring faculty to improve teach- ing and student learning. He contends that, to establish a good mentoring system aimed to assist in retaining junior faculty and prevent burnout by senior faculty, there must be two factors in place: “(1) a valid and reliable student evaluation instrument and (2) a meaningful norming report.” He opines that many institutions employ rating instruments that lack validity and reliability and, even worse, do not ∗ Special thanks to I-Lin (Christy) Tu for her many contributions to this project and to Harvey Brightman for his suggestions in his invited article in this journal in 2005 that led us to rethink and expand our research efforts. † Corresponding author. 375