ATTRIBUTIONAL BIAS AND COURSE-EVALUATIONS

Self-serving bias, a type of attributional bias, refers to people's tendency to take credit for success and avoid blame for failure. How this affects course evaluations is tested by comparing the self-esteem model, predicting that course evaluations reflect actual grades, with the expectancy-confirmation model, predicting that evaluations reflect confirmation or disconfirmation of grade expectations. Questionnaire data were obtained from all students N = 691 in 38 classes representing 16 disciplines. Analyses at both the individual and class-mean level show that "self-serving" bias has a minimal or nonexistent effect on evaluations; that the self-esteem model explains best; and that the amount of bias caused by grades, self-serving bias, and 18 demographic/situational variables is low for all evaluation dimensions. The results support the validity of properly obtained course evaluations.