Student outcomes, if assessed carefully and used cautiously, may be helpful in evaluating teachers. However, multiple approaches to understanding student outcomes should be linked to overall program evaluation, combined with strong involvement from teachers, and related to ongoing faculty development. NEW DIRECTIONS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING, no. 88, Winter 2001 © John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 63 7 Using Student Outcomes to Evaluate Teaching: A Cautious Exploration Tara J. Fenwick There is no doubt that the language of outcomes and competency has dom- inant currency in business and industry and increasingly in public sector organizations and educational institutions. Accountability is a common ral- lying cry of stakeholders demanding transparency and quality measured by outcomes. In higher education, a growing movement to harness learning to industrial purposes and economic imperatives has been linked to questions about instructional performance. In fact, a general movement toward assessment in higher education throughout North America, the United Kingdom, and Australia has tried to demonstrate the “value-added” bene- fit of instruction in higher education. According to Ewell (1995), this move- ment is evident in curriculum restructuring to achieve higher levels of instructor productivity, a focus on continuous quality improvement, and pressure for instructor and institutional accountability for key performance indicators. Student learning is one outcome, if not a priority, of higher education in general and teaching in particular. But can student outcomes be used in valid and responsible ways to evaluate and improve teaching within today’s complex academic environments? If so, how can student outcomes be configured in relation to teaching without dangerously narrowing and decontextualizing the analysis or scapegoating instructors for students’ achievement? This chapter examines student outcomes as one dimension of a multi- faceted program of faculty evaluation. Approaches are suggested for the micro-level and macro-level evaluation of student outcomes. But first, it is critical to examine the contexts affecting student outcomes and the prob- lems in assessing them reliably.