>Turns out that there’s a strong correlation between a student’s grade and their assessment of the professor’s abilities.
One possible explanation is that the student's evaluation of the prof is based on how well he understands the course material (since the prof's job is to induce that understanding) - which, of course, also impacts the student's grade.
>Turns out that there’s a strong correlation between a student’s grade and their assessment of the professor’s abilities.
In my experience with classmates, it initially might also look like this correlation is true, however I think the hypothesis is a bit more involved.
In one case, one class was taught with quite easy grading policies and many people ended up getting good grades - yet the smart students were unhappy with the professor and lack of challenge. In another cases, I've seen quite difficult abstract math classes and smart students would complain about the teacher as well - because of personal incompatibility - the teacher's style just didn't click with the student. And also, many times weak students would express a lot of respect and positive rating of a professor even though the teaching was over the top of their heads.
Yet obviously there were the lazy/less smart types who would just reduce the challenge to complaining about the prof - yet they are probably likely to complain about people in different situations (i.e. job)
One possible explanation is that the student's evaluation of the prof is based on how well he understands the course material (since the prof's job is to induce that understanding) - which, of course, also impacts the student's grade.