Student feedback on teaching does not serve any real purpose

 
What is the value of student evaluations of teaching?
 
I have always felt that student feedback for my courses did not correlate with the effort I put in. In fact, whenever I put extra effort into improving my teaching, my course feedback has dropped.
 
I used to dismiss this as cognitive bias until I came across the “Rate My Professors” website, where students evaluate professors in US universities. I was astonished to find that a few professors, whose research articles and lecture notes have significantly influenced my thinking, were rated very poorly. It is not just about research. One particular professor, whose lecture notes I used as a model for my own, has also received mostly negative feedback. (For clarification, I never studied in the US)
 
There are countless research papers on the value of student feedback, and most scholars agree it is a debatable subject. While student feedback on certain aspects of teaching can be useful, its overall usefulness beyond a certain point is highly questionable. As Johnson (2000) argues, student feedback has less to do with education and more with bureaucracy.
 
In my understanding, there are two primary aspects of teaching that matter to students: providing learning opportunities and making students comfortable. Students generally give more emphasize to the latter. Even if a course offers great learning opportunities, the students are likely to rate it poorly if they have not felt comfortable.
 
The assumption that students attend a course “to learn” is not always valid. Most students in core branches (Civil, Mechanical, etc.) in Indian technological institutions opt for non-core jobs after graduation. Their lack of motivation to learn core subjects should not come as a surprise. How this affects student evaluations of core courses needs serious examination. In fact, I could not find a single research article on this subject matter.
 
I am in no way advocating for doing away with student evaluations. However, it is essential to evaluate their scope for improving the effectiveness of teaching. In my assessment, student feedback serves the purpose of a scarecrow -- it lacks life but creates an illusion of it -- making teachers more likely to take teaching seriously.