Evaluation research in business schools: students’ rating myth Eugenia Petridou and Katerina Sarri The authors Eugenia Petridou is based at the Department of Business Administration, Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki, Greece. Katerina Sarri is based at the Department of Business Administration, Technological and Educational Institute of Thessaloniki, Greece. Keywords Research methods, Business schools, Management effectiveness, Greece Abstract This paper is an ªevaluationº study in the form of an extensive ªcase studyº of one particular business school in Greece. Its alleged contribution focuses on the conclusions it hopes to draw in relation to the evaluation research methodology, based on the case evaluation research, experimenting with the use of students’ ratings (SETs). The effect of a number of quantitative variables (expected course grade, student study hours, course dif culty, and instructor grading system) as well as of a number of qualitative variables (student’s major discipline and reason for taking a course, and instructor gender and employment status) on SETs are examined in order to provide a basis for restructuring the currently employed evaluation research methodology. Electronic access The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0951-354X.htm Introduction Over the past decade, business processes and practices have been redened mainly because of changes brought about by globalization, technology revolution, downsizing and re-engineering. New trends in labor market, lifelong learning provisions, demands for quality awareness, are among the numerous issues that constitute pressures for employees and employers as well. Education and training have been “discovered” as levers for providing the focus and building the competencies needed by next generation organizations (Vicere, 1998). In Europe as well as in the US, restructuring business studies, both in postgraduate and undergraduate levels in order to adjust to the demands of the labor market, received a lot of discussion and criticism even before the 1980s (Baruch and Peiperl, 2000; Kedia and Harveston, 1998). In Greece, the development of such programs emerged in the mid-1980s and attracted considerable attention in the 1990s (Kudu-Xirotiri and Petridou, 2000). Moreover, hundreds of companies have launched internal “corporate universities” or they invest in inter-mediation activities such as partnerships with Universities, Colleges and other Educational and Training Institutions (Vicere, 1998). The aims of such programs are to enrich their graduates’ knowledge and skills preparing them for managerial roles, provide them with competencies relevant to their careers, help them gain a better understanding of the industrial and business world. As a result, both students’ and employers’ expectations of all kinds of educational and training courses offered by business schools and training centers were determined (Baruch and Peiperl, 2000; Boyatzis and Renio, 1989). Furthermore, new and enhanced regimes for academic quality assurance were accompanied by increasingly intrusive requirements on business schools to manage their nancial affairs well, and to open to detailed scrutiny of their nancial solvency and integrity (Athiyaman, 1997; Cheng and Tam, 1997; Hill, 1995). For all of the above reasons, the evaluation research on the results of the educational The International Journal of Educational Management Volume 18 ´ Number 3 ´ 2004 ´ pp. 152±159 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited ´ ISSN 0951-354X DOI 10.1108/09513540410527149 152