Evaluations of faculty instructional ability have long been used to assist in promotion, tenure, and hiring decisions or to help improve individual teaching performance. Internal and external pressures for increased accountability, together with improvements in evaluation methods, have resulted in increased emphasis on evaluation of instruction. Among the information sources currently used are measures of student achievement, classroom observations, and ratings by colleagues, administrators, or students. Measures of student learning as direct indicators of a faculty member's teaching ability are not always reliable, but do give some important information. Classroom observation can take a number of forms, but there is disagreement about the meaning and use of each. Student evaluations of courses and instructors can address many dimensions of teaching: teaching skill, rapport, interaction, feedback, organization and planning of the course, amount and difficulty of work, perceived value of the course, and perceived achievement. However, aspects of instructor performance measured by student ratings may be quite separate from the factors that result in effective teaching. Faculty self-ratings, peer ratings, and student ratings as measures of effectiveness generally agree in pattern; however, self-ratings and peer ratings tend to be higher than student ratings. (Author/MSE)