University Blues: Role of Attachment and Distress on Students’ Evaluations of Instructors’ Teaching Performance

Despite concerns about bias, student evaluations of teaching continue to be significant to faculty career advancement in academia. In a recent study, attachment representations were shown to be associated with students’ perceptions of instructors (Henson & Scharfe, 2011); students with insecure-anxious representations were more likely to rate their professors negatively. These data, however, were cross-sectional, and the role of distress in this association was not examined. To examine the influence of anxiety and depressive symptoms on the association between attachment representations and evaluations of instructors’ teaching performance, 102 undergraduate students (91% female, 17–38 years old) completed questionnaires at two time points during the semester. Interestingly, both attachment anxiety and avoidance measured at the beginning of the semester were negatively associated with teaching evaluations at the end of the semester, and this effect was stronger for participants who reported high anxiety and depressive symptoms. The findings are consistent with previous work exploring the perception of others of depressed and non-depressed individuals, and provides some support for Bowlby's original proposals concerning the importance of distress in understanding the effects of attachment. Strategies to support students’ transition to post-secondary education and to promote positive teaching evaluations are discussed.