TY  - JOUR
AU  - Carrell,Scott E.
AU  - West,James E.
TI  - Does Professor Quality Matter? Evidence from Random Assignment of Students to Professors
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 14081
PY  - 2008
Y2  - June 2008
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14081
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14081.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Scott E. Carrell
Department of Economics
University of California, Davis
One Shields Avenue
Davis, CA 95616
Tel: 530/302-1038
Fax: 530/752-9382
E-Mail: secarrell@ucdavis.edu

James West
Department of Economics and Geosciences
U.S. Air Force Acdemy
2354 Fairchild Dr. #6K100
USAF Academy, CO  80840
Tel: 719-333-8735
Fax: 719-333-7137
E-Mail: Jim.West@usafa.edu
AB  - It is difficult to measure teaching quality at the postsecondary level because students typically "self-select" their coursework and their professors. Despite this, student evaluations of professors are widely used in faculty promotion and tenure decisions. We exploit the random assignment of college students to professors in a large body of required coursework to examine how professor quality affects student achievement. Introductory course professors significantly affect student achievement in contemporaneous and follow-on related courses, but the effects are quite heterogeneous across subjects. Students of professors who as a group perform well in the initial mathematics course perform significantly worse in follow-on related math, science, and engineering courses. We find that the academic rank, teaching experience, and terminal degree status of mathematics and science professors are negatively correlated with contemporaneous student achievement, but positively related to follow-on course achievement. Across all subjects, student evaluations of professors are positive predictors of contemporaneous course achievement, but are poor predictors of follow-on course achievement.
ER  -