TY - JOUR AU - De Vlieger, Pieter AU - Jacob, Brian AU - Stange, Kevin TI - Measuring Instructor Effectiveness in Higher Education JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 22998 PY - 2016 Y2 - December 2016 DO - 10.3386/w22998 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w22998 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w22998.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Pieter De Vlieger University of Michigan 735 South State Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109 E-Mail: pdvl@umich.edu Brian Jacob Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy University of Michigan 735 South State Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Tel: 734-615-6994 Fax: NA E-Mail: bajacob@umich.edu Kevin M. Stange Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy University of Michigan 5236 Weill Hall 735 South State Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Tel: 734/615-6990 E-Mail: kstange@umich.edu M1 - published as Pieter De Vlieger, Brian Jacob, Kevin Stange. "Measuring Instructor Effectiveness in Higher Education," in Caroline M. Hoxby and Kevin Stange, editors, "Productivity in Higher Education" University of Chicago Press (2019) AB - Instructors are a chief input into the higher education production process, yet we know very little about their role in promoting student success. This is in contrast to elementary and secondary schooling, for which ample evidence suggests teacher quality is an important determinant of student achievement. Whether colleges could improve student and institutional performance by reallocating instructors or altering personnel policies hinges on the role of instructors in student success. In this paper we measure variation in postsecondary instructor effectiveness and estimate its relationship to overall and course-specific teaching experience. We explore this issue in the context of the University of Phoenix, a large for-profit university that offers both online and in-person courses in a wide array of fields and degree programs. We focus on instructors in the college algebra course that is required for all BA degree program students. We find substantial variation in student performance across instructors both in the current class and subsequent classes. Variation is larger for in-person classes, but is still substantial for online courses. Effectiveness grows modestly with course-specific teaching experience, but is unrelated to pay. Our results suggest that personnel policies for recruiting, developing, motivating, and retaining effective postsecondary instructors may be a key, yet underdeveloped, tool for improving institutional productivity. ER -