Availability of cookies during an academic course session affects evaluation of teaching

– National Center for Biological Information

Results from end-of-course student evaluations of teaching (SETs) are taken seriously by faculties and form part of a decision base for the recruitment of academic staff, the distribution of funds and changes to curricula. However, there is some doubt as to whether these evaluation instruments accurately measure the quality of course content, teaching and knowledge transfer. This paper investigated whether the provision of chocolate cookies as a content-unrelated intervention influences SET results.