The use of secondary school student ratings of their teacher’s skillfulness for low-stake assessment and high-stake evaluation

Previous studies in higher education have shown that the reliability of student ratings of teaching skill increases if multiple ratings by different students are aggregated. This study examines the generalizability of these findings to the context of secondary education. Also, it seeks to validate these findings by comparing reliability levels estimated by the routinely used nested design with those estimated using a more complex design. The sample consisted of 410 students from 17 classes rating 63 teachers working at eight schools across the Netherlands. Using the nested design, the study replicates findings of previous studies in higher education. The findings illustrate how the reliability level of secondary school students’ ratings increases with an increasing number of students. However, these replicated reliability levels were not validated by the more complex design which provided lower estimates. This indicates that the nested design may not provide accurate estimations of rating reliability