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Earl Aagaard’s opinions about everything that interests him. Og also enjoys gardening, travel, reading, woodbutchery, and lots of other stuff.

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MORE FROM THE “DEPARTMENT OF ‘DUH…...’”

Today’s news flash is…..wait for it…...it’s coming…....

Students actually DO (gasp) reward easier teachers with higher ratings on the “student evaluations of teachers” that college administrators love so much! And the corollary is that the ratings on teacher quality are NOT predictive of actual student learning, as measured by how well-prepared students are for the next class in a sequence.

I’m personally puzzled as to why this should come as a surprise to anyone who a. is a human being, and/or b. knows and interacts with human beings, and/or c. was once an adolescent, and/or d. knows and interacts with adolescents…...

Nevertheless, research that merely confirms what common sense tells us is obviously true is nonetheless valuable, because it can (sometimes) serve to convince Homo administratems that it might be a good idea to take reality into account, rather than what is wished were true.

Previous studies have found that students are more likely to give good reviews to instructors who are easy graders or who are good looking. The Ohio State study — in many ways larger and more ambitious than previous ones — found a strong correlation between grades in a course and reviews of professors, such that it is clear that students are rewarding those who reward them.

As I say….why would this be surprising? Of course, it’s POSSIBLE that a really good teacher is masterfully raising the consciousness of the students and inspiring an outburst of academic effort and achievement that is then recognized by all the students and rewarded with good evaluations. One should not discount this possibility.

The Ohio State study, however, provides evidence for the more cynical/realistic interpretation — namely that professors who are easy (and aren’t necessarily the best teachers) earn good ratings. The way the Ohio State team did this was to look at grades in subsequent classes that would have relied on the learning in the class in which the students’ evaluations were studied. Their finding: no correlation between professor evaluations and the learning that is actually taking place.

For those who interact with a wide spectrum of college students on a regular basis, it’s not terribly surprising to learn that research undermines the notion (beloved of academic administrators) that student opinion about the quality of the teaching going on bears some positive relation to reality. But, maybe the rest of the citizenry will be convinced as “data” continues to support the obvious - they really haven’t a clue.

And just maybe, at the VERY least, we could stop reading such things as THIS, which was sent around by an Academic VP not far from here:

Please remind students that their honest and careful input will give you helpful feedback regarding the course(s) that you teach, as well as providing important data for the Faculty Promotions Committee when it is time to consider your advancement in academic rank.

I’d like to know what empirical basis there is for basing decision about faculty promotions or rank on student evaluations…...

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Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/30 at 11:14 AM

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