Issues pertaining to the validity of student ratings of teacher effectiveness, research on "educational seduction," and implications of the research for the evaluation and improvement of teaching are reviewed. Criteria that have been used to validate student ratings include student achievement, faculty ratings, self-ratings, research productivity, and teacher's educational background. The concept of educational seduction, also called the "Dr. Fox Effect," comes from the claim that an entertaining, charismatic instructor can receive favorable student ratings, while offering insufficient lecture content. To test this hypothesis, an experimental design is needed involving two independent variables (instructor expressiveness and lecture content) and two dependent variables (student ratings and achievement). Different research approaches are described, including those employed by Williams and Ware and by Perry, Abrami, and Leventhal. William and Ware argue that their research supports educational seduction, and that the effect can be generalized to classrooms in the field setting. Perry, Abrami, and Leventhal claim that the educational seduction effect is not supported by their empirical results. (SW)