Colleges and universities are employing student evaluations of faculty with increasing frequency. On some campuses, the forms are used at the instructor\u27s option and serve primarily as a source of feedback for faculty development purposes. Others require student evaluation of instruction and publish the results in academic consumer\u27s guides. Still others consider student evaluations of instruction in making decisions with regard to faculty salary increases, retention, tenure and promotion. The optional use of student ratings in order to improve instruction often evolves to the mandatory consideration of student rating data in making decisions about faculty retention, promotion and tenure. As this occurs it is important that the validity of these measures also increases. Unfortunately, however, not much is known about what student ratings of faculty really measure and experimental studies which can extend this knowledge base are virtually non-existent
