Tenure system and its impact on grading leniency, teaching effectiveness and student effort

• Published in: Empirical economics Vol. 55; no. 3; pp. 1207 - 1227
• Main Author: Keng, Shao-Hsun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.11.2018; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Academic tenure; Assistants; Deviation; Econometrics; Economic theory; Economic Theory/Quantitative Economics/Mathematical Methods; Economics; Economics and Finance; Falls; Finance; Insurance; Leniency; Management; Statistics for Business; Students; Teacher evaluations; Teaching; Tenure; Teaching evaluation; Grading leniency; Student effort; I20; Teaching effectiveness; Tenure system; I21; I23
• ISSN: 0377-7332; 1435-8921
• DOI: 10.1007/s00181-017-1313-7

This study provides new evidence of the causal effect of the tenure system on grading leniency, teaching effectiveness, and student effort by taking advantage of a natural experiment in one public university in Taiwan. The results show that assistant professors subject to the tenure system tend to grade more leniently and fail fewer students, as opposed to assistant professors not affected by the policy. The tenure policy lowers the probability of failing a class by 15%. Teaching effectiveness measured by the valued-added model also falls significantly by 0.32 standard deviation of the average grades in subsequent courses, roughly 6.6% of the sample means. The effect on student effort also is significant. Study time and class absences decline by 3 and 10%, respectively. The results suggest that the tenure system reduces teaching effectiveness and leads to lenient grading. Moreover, although used as a measure of teaching effectiveness in tenure promotion, student evaluation of teaching cannot truly reflect teaching quality.