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Student knowledgeability, a measure of a student's background knowledge and interest in an area of study, was found to significantly influence student ratings of instructors and courses. The higher the level of student knowledge‐ ability, the higher that student rated courses and instructors, regardless of how a particular course/instructor was actually ranked when compared to all other courses/instructors used in the study. This was interpreted as reflecting the highly knowledgeable students’ greater sensitivity to and appreciation of good teaching as well as their ability to minimize the consequences of poor teaching for themselves.

The present study investigates eighth‐graders' summarizations of a scientific article used in their science class. Qualitative differences among students' summaries were found. Generally, the better summaries included significantly more information (in terms of details and key ideas); identified the dominant predicate more completely, and used more different rhetorical structures than did the poorer summaries. The most well‐written essays reflected the text organization of the input essay (i.e., the author's original text). Students appear to be sensitive to the text organization and semantic content of the input essay, and draw upon these structures to construct their summaries. This study also developed and tested a coding scheme which reflected both structure and content of the summaries.

Student knowledgeability, class size, and class level were found to significantly influence students' ratings of instruction. In general, the more knowledgeable the student in an area, the higher his ratings of courses and instructors in that area. Also, large courses and advanced courses were most highly rated by students. The effect of student sex on student ratings of instruction varied as a function of the particular aspect of instruction being evaluated. Significant interactions among the four main effects were also found across the judgmental dimensions students utilized in evaluating instruction, as assessed by factor analysis. Student knowledgeability and class size were found to be the main predictors of student ratings on these dimensions.