| I will try to update
this page on a regular basis. I think it is time that a forum and debate
on this topic be established at the University of Idaho.
American Chemical Society
Exams
The teacher opens the
door, the student enters by
himself. - Chinese
Proverb
April 15, 2005 - I certainly believe
that the phenomenon of grade inflation which is now linked to student
evaluations of teaching is adversely affecting higher education. Faculty
and administrators must face up to the fact that student evaluations of
teaching (SET) are causing many faculty to avoid intellectually
challenging material in order to placate students...
Read the rest here.
Links
July 11, 2008
another study debunking the validity of student evaluations of teaching.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/07/11/evaluation.
..........One of the major points of the study was its look at the
effectiveness of student evaluations. Although the evaluations can
accurately predict the performance of the student in the
“contemporaneous” course — the course in which the professor teaches the
student — they are “very poor” predictors of the performance of a
professor’s students in later, follow-up courses. Because many
universities use student evaluations as a factor in decisions of
promotion and tenure, this “draws into question how one should measure
professor quality,” according to the report. “It appears students reward
getting higher grades,” Carrell said.....
July 11, 2008 From
Phi Beta Cons: A Student Finds College
Courses Far Too Easy [George
Leef] Continuing the Pope Center's series of pieces in which
students reflect on their educational experiences, today we offer one by
an older student who found his courses at East Carolina to be far too
easy. Read his piece
here.
This piece reinforces a point I've made often — many colleges today
are little better than diploma mills, selling credentials that purport
to reflect higher learning but which in fact call for only minimal
effort by the student.
07/11 11:15 AM
02-23-07 Using Standardized Exams for Assessment of Student Learning.
There is much recent interest in the assessment in learning outcome,
for good reason as the NSSE surveys indicate that students study less than
13 hours per week, many at tax-payer subsidized instructions. The use of
standardized exams is at times controversial as there is a perception that
some will teach to the exam. However when the average college student
studies less than 1 hour per credit hour (for a 15 credit hour load) when
the ideal is 2-3 per credit hour for a more normal 40 hours of study per
week, we in higher ed are in a crisis mode. Standardized exams can be a
very valuable tool when comparing student learning and assessment. A
study in the highly prestigious journal
Science,
verifies the prediction of graduate school success and performance on
standardized test scores. An
Insidehighered.com article on that paper.
A new study by three
economists at Ohio State University may add to those fears. 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.........
In another finding of concern, the study found evidence that students
— controlling for other factors — tend to give lesser evaluations to
instructors who are women or who were born outside the United States.
And they found this despite not finding any correlation between
instructor identity and the level of learning that took
place...............
One explanation, for example, is that students don’t themselves have
a good sense of how much they are learning. The authors stress that
there are many ways — such as adjusting for student bias for easy
graders or bias against certain groups of instructors — to continue to
use student evaluations as one tool for measuring professors’
performance. But they write that, used alone and unadjusted, they appear
highly questionable..................
All of this leads me to ask: why should we publicly fund
institutions that often suppress the truth, violating their very mission
to society? And why should we publicly fund schools that do not make
their students work very much? The NSSE results showing seniors study
on average 13 hours a week are shocking, but ignored. To borrow from
Ben Wildavsky, who wrote the marvelous first draft of the Spellings
Commission report, why should we subsidize "hedonistic" college
students in country club settings?
My undergraduate students
can’t accurately predict their academic performance or skill levels.
Earlier in the semester, a writing assignment on study styles revealed
that 14 percent of my undergraduate English composition students
considered themselves “overachievers.” Not one of those students was
receiving an A in my course by midterm. Fifty percent were receiving a
C, another third was receiving B’s and the remainder had earned failing
grades by midterm. One student wrote, “overachievers like myself began a
long time ago.” She received a 70 percent on her first paper and a low C
at midterm.
......
Dozens of colleagues have told me that their undergraduates simply do
not have the tools to criticize and evaluate their own work-much less
predict how well they will do on assignments. What’s behind this great
drop in ability to assess performance?
...... Clear class
objectives and strongly worded syllabi are often ignored as students
continue to overestimate their capabilities based on past performance.
...... Today, we
have turned out a glut of students who not only can’t assess themselves,
but who have received awards for every little thing.” When they enroll
in college, students often still have no idea how they fare when
compared with other undergraduates.
Saying that U.S. higher
education had slipped behind its global competition, U.S. Education
Secretary Margaret Spellings on Tuesday laid out her plans for an
overhaul, including creating a federal database to track students'
academic progress and revamping the financial-aid system.
.... In too many areas, its final report said, "Americans
just aren't getting the education that they need — and that they
deserve."
The report proposed that colleges and universities regularly
test their students to learn whether schools are meeting their goals and
promises. Those results would then form part of a national database
that would help students and their parents learn about and choose
colleges.
The story as covered by the
New York Times;
Margaret Spellings vowed Tuesday to help finance state
universities that administer standardized tests, establish a national
database to track students’ progress toward a degree and cut the red
tape surrounding federal student aid.
....
In one of its most highly debated recommendations, the report
called on public universities to measure learning with standardized
tests, and listed two by name: the Collegiate Learning Assessment and
the Measure of Academic Proficiency and Progress.
....
“No current ranking system of colleges and universities
directly measures the most critical point, student performance and
learning,” she said."
But the notion that we will put our country's future in jeopardy
unless we get more students through college is mistaken. The US already
puts too many unmotivated students into college, where they learn
little.
There are lots of American students who are eager to learn and
proceed to master skills that aid them in their careers. But government
and private support already get almost all of these passionate pupils
into college. The trouble is that many other students enter college
with no enthusiasm for learning. Boosting college participation would
mean recruiting still more of these disengaged students. Increasing
their numbers will not give us a more skilled workforce; it will just
put more downward pressure on academic standards.
Already standards have been falling for decades, as schools
have lowered expectations to keep weak, indifferent students enrolled.
Indeed, many students who graduate from college are deficient in even
the most basic skills that employers want. Last year's National
Assessment of Adult Literacy found, for example, that less than a third
of college graduates are proficient in reading and the ability to do
elementary mathematical calculations. Similarly, the National Commission
on Writing has found that many business executives are appalled at
graduates' poor writing skills.
When is an A not an A?
That's the question
faculty and administrators at colleges across the country are wrestling
with as they seek to bridge the grading gap between student expectations
and teacher assessments.
......
College professors,
nonetheless, say they are under increasing pressures to purposely
manipulate grades to reflect their own or their institution’s desired
profile.
"It's pressure placed on
professors to keep a respectable reputation within the university,"
Mansfield (of Harvard University) said. "If professors gave low grades,
their course evaluations would be poor and they would expect to get more
complaints from students and parents."
.....
Because grades are
weighted so heavily in the eyes of students, parents, grad schools and
other corners, "they are the most accessible indicators of undergraduate
academic performance, and are often subject to intense public arguments
about whether students are being judged more leniently than in the
past," Clifford Adelman, a senior research analyst for the U.S.
Department of Education, wrote in a
2002 study of grading policies.
"Americans are fascinated
by grades in education, almost as fascinated as by indicators of
athletic performance in the sports section or various market averages in
the business section," Adelman said. "Education should be teaching you
the truth, not making you feel good," which is something grade inflation
has been doing to those affected, he added.
Mansfield said he gives
his students two sets of grades: The first appears on the transcript,
while the other is the true grade he thinks the student deserved. This
way, students can realize the true score for their performance level, he
said. At the same time, Mansfield is aware that professors are under
pressure to get their students to perform well and that their
reputations are at stake if they are known to give out bad grades
.....
The Problem With
Math and Science
Students in the sciences
are the ones most likely to face grade deflation, Mansfield said.
"Science is harder and
grades in the sciences generally lag behind humanities,” he said.
......
Mansfield also said that,
while teaching evaluations play a big part in pressuring professors to
inflate grades, doing away with evaluations might be harder than fixing
dishonest grading policies.
"Students now feel that
they have the right to make professors accountable to them through
evaluations," he said. "And the administrators now feel the need to have
an objective evaluation of how professors teach. Unfortunately, they
only use student evaluations to do that. Student evaluations are the
only ones professors get a most places; they're the only evaluations
that we faculty members receive at Harvard. How good a teacher you are
turns out to be how good the specific students in your course think you
are."
Some educators advocate a
more radical approach: Honesty.
There are no widely
available measures of how much learning occurs inside the classroom, or
of how much students benefit from their education.
... In fact, some
reliable measures of student learning, engagement, and post-graduation
success have already been developed. These measures reveal where
professors are the most effective at teaching, where graduates readily
find jobs, and where students walk away with little more than expertise
in conspicuous beer consumption. So why haven't you heard about these
measures? Because many school administrators don't want you to know.
Putting their grades on the table is the last thing many colleges and
universities want ...
Instead of testing discrete pieces of knowledge, test the
higher-order critical thinking, analysis, and communication skills that
all college students should learn (and which employers value most). The
Collegiate Learning Assessment, recently developed by a subsidiary of
the RAND Corporation, does exactly that. Instead of filling in bubbles
with a No. 2 pencil, CLA test-takers write lengthy essays, analyzing
documents and critiquing arguments.
... While several
hundred colleges and universities have participated in the CLA, most
have kept their results confidential. The University of Texas System,
however, has made results public, and they're surprising. The CLA tests
freshmen and seniors, gauging the amount of learning students gain
during their college careers. Senior scores are also compared to the
scores predicted by students' ACT or SAT results. The best Texas
university by this measure isn't the flagship, highly ranked UT-Austin
campus. The biggest gains are occurring at UT-San Antonio, UT-El Paso,
and UT-Permian Basin, all of which are at the bottom of
the U.S. News rankings.
... In 1998, a group
of educators sat down to translate the research on how students learn
into an assessment tool for colleges. Convened by Russell Edgerton,
former president of the American Association for Higher Education and
then director of education programs for the Pew Charitable Trusts, an
all-star cast of higher-education experts developed a comprehensive
survey for freshmen and seniors to report the number of books read,
papers written, hours spent preparing for class, as well as indicators
of student collaboration, student-faculty interaction, and the overall
campus environment.
This evaluation, called the National Survey of Student Engagement
(NSSE), was launched two years later, with over 275 colleges and
universities participating. As of 2006, nearly 1,000 colleges have been
evaluated, each receiving a detailed statistical analysis of how well
its students are being academically engaged. Housed at Indiana
University and administered annually at a cost to each college of as
little as $1.50 per student surveyed, NSSE not only shows colleges how
well they're performing but how they stack up against the
competition--for instance, whether their school ranks above or below
average among peer institutions for faculty providing prompt feedback to
students about their work
Edgerton and Pew convened the original 1998 meeting looking for an
alternative to the U.S. News rankings. But after
investing over $3.5 million to develop and roll out the survey they
wanted NSSE to be widely used and financially self-sustaining. That
meant getting a lot of institutions to both agree to participate and pay
for the privilege. Many were willing, on one condition: the results
would be kept in-house and away from public eyes. Institutions knew that
public data would inevitably be used to rank and compare colleges. They
didn't know where the survey would put them and were worried about
looking bad relative to their peers.
As a result, NSSE results for most colleges are--like results from
the CLA--unavailable to the public. U.S. News has asked
for NSSE results, but has only been able to publish what institutions
release voluntarily. Less than 15 percent of colleges ranked by the
magazine have complied, and none of the top-tier national universities
have released results. The newsmagazine Maclean's, which
ranks Canada's 47 universities, recently tried a different tack, using
freedom of information requests to pry NSSE data out of Canadian public
university hands. But it would be an immense legal challenge to use this
approach for the many hundreds of U.S. universities, and private
colleges wouldn't have to comply. The only way to get full NSSE data on
all schools would be to make disclosure mandatory. Sen. Edward Kennedy
(D-Mass.) floated legislation to do exactly that a few years ago, but it
was quickly torpedoed.
...
The third way to judge colleges is by measuring what happens to
students after they graduate, such as how quickly they find work and how
likely they are to receive promotions. Only a handful of elite
universities attempt to maintain databases of high-earning alumni; most
institutions have no idea what careers their graduates enter. But this
information is actually available; it just hasn't been connected in the
right way. State governments gather data about earnings and field of
employment for virtually every wage-earner in the nation, so that they
can calculate unemployment insurance benefits for people who are laid
off work. This data can be matched with student records provided by
colleges and universities.
That would give students and parents a huge amount of new,
detailed information about which colleges help their graduates get jobs
in their field of study and earn a good living. Say you're a Hispanic
high-school senior who wants to design the next-generation space shuttle
or send men to Mars. You'd want to know which universities nationwide
graduate the most Hispanic engineers who get well-paying jobs in the
aerospace industry. Linking education and employment data--information
that already exists today--would give you the answer.
A handful of states have already made the connection. The Florida
Department of Education publishes an annual list of how much money
graduates of the state's nine public universities who stay in state to
work earn the fall after graduation. The results aren't what one might
expect. 2004 graduates of the University of Florida--the state's most
prestigious and selective public university, and a top-tier institution
according to U.S. News--earned $25,773 per year on
average. Graduates of Florida International University, which
U.S. News puts in the bottom tier, earned $34,756, the highest
in the state. Once again, some low-ranked universities appear to be
doing better than the conventional wisdom gives them credit for.
...
The higher-education
sector is ultimately driven by the market. Colleges and universities
will strive and compete on whatever terms the market provides. As long
as status and success are predicated on building endowments and
recruiting more students with high SAT scores, college leaders will
continue to focus on fundraising, marketing, and little else. If, on the
other hand, success meant teaching students effectively and helping them
do well in their lives and careers, universities would change their
priorities.
The
Washington Monthly's college rankings
WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 — A
federal commission approved a final report on Thursday that urges a
broad shake-up of American higher education. It calls for public
universities to measure learning with standardized tests, federal
monitoring of college quality and sweeping changes in financial aid.
Eighteen of the 19 members of the panel, the Commission on the Future
of Higher Education, voted to sign the report, which attacked increasing
tuition costs and pointed to signs of complacency on some campuses.
A proposal on standardized tests was also weakened at the last
moment. Previous drafts said that “states should require” public
universities to use standardized test, but the final version said simply
that universities “should measure student learning” with standardized
tests. Ms. Spellings urged the group to examine access,
affordability and accountability, to determine whether colleges were
turning out students qualified to compete in the global economy. The
answer in too many cases, the panel said, is that they are not.
“Too many Americans just aren’t getting the education that they
need,” the report said. “There are disturbing signs that many students
who do earn degrees have not actually mastered the reading, writing and
thinking skills we expect of college graduates.”
More on that NY Times article at this
blogger's website
"Nearly every aspect of
higher education in America needs fixing, according to a draft report of
a national commission that calls for an overhaul of the student
financial aid system, better cost controls by colleges and universities
and more proof of results, including testing. The report by the
panel appointed last year by Education Secretary Margaret Spellings was
highly critical of the nation's institutions of higher education. It
said there was a lack of accountability to show that students were
learning, that college costs have risen too high, and that "unacceptable
numbers of college graduates" were entering the workforce without skills
that employers say they need."
...
"It suggested that students who were not well prepared might not
belong in college.
"A troubling number of undergraduates waste time and taxpayer
dollars mastering English and math skills that they should have learned
in high school," it said.
The draft also advocated testing. It recommended that states
require public institutions to measure student learning using tests like
the Collegiate Learning Assessment, a recently devised test of student
skills in math, reading and critical thinking. And it said colleges
should then post the results of such tests to show how much students had
learned in a manner that would allow students to compare the performance
of colleges."
More on that report at
Insidehighered.com.
"For railroads and steel manufacturers, the best days are past. Do
American colleges and universities face the same fate?"
“Evidence that the quality of student learning at U.S. colleges
and universities is inadequate and, in some cases, declining.”
"Developing a “unit record” system ("with appropriate privacy
safeguards") to allow for the tracking of student performance across
their academic careers."
My thoughts: Several tests of comprehensive knowledge for
graduating college seniors exist. Besides the
CLA
mentioned above which measures critical thinking, there is the
GRE. For more specific knowledge,
there is the
MFAT (Major Field Assessment Test), and at least in chemistry the
American Chemical Society
Exams. Engineers, medical doctors, lawyers and many professions in
the sciences require accreditation exams. My personal opinion is that
these exams are valid. Would you visit a doctor who repeatedly fails
their accreditation exam?
Universities can boast all they want about quality of their
graduates. It means nothing unless it is backed up with data. These
would include
- Testing all seniors for comprehensive and discipline specific
knowledge and thinking skills
- Measurement of acceptance rates of students into quality med,
grad, law, and business schools
- The graduation rates of our students from these programs
- To determine if their university studies prepared them well for
their endeavors we should do follow-up questionnaires of all students,
both the ones that entered jobs immediately after graduation and those
that entered post-baccalaureate studies.
"The standards are kind of
flabby. There are two things going on. One is the standards have gotten
low, so that there's kind of a nonaggression pact between an awful lot
of faculty members and students, saying in effect, if you don't ask too
much of me, if you don't bother me, I won't ask a lot of you. You'll get
a good grade. I'll have time to do my research. So that's too common."
John Merrow has an
essay at the Carnegie Foundation web site:
"Of all the students I met during nearly two
years of working on our PBS documentary about higher education, I
continue to be intrigued by a sophomore named Nate. After proudly
proclaiming that he was maintaining a 3.4 GPA despite studying less than
an hour a night, he wondered aloud, "It's not supposed to be this easy,
is it? Shouldn't college be challenging?" Nate was one of the more
enlightened students that we interviewed."
"Serious attention must be paid at a
national level. Other countries are not standing still. Those that have
not surpassed us already in educational attainment levels are clearly
visible in the rear-view mirror."
"My argument is that a
student culture of self-indulgence is enabled by the failure of
professors to maintain expectations in the classroom. At many
institutions, courses have been gutted to the point that students
receive high grades for minimal effort,"
"The consumer mentality of students results in their desiring less
rigorous instruction because they are paying more for it."
"Students, even if they are paying tuition, are not "customers"
because, at most institutions, their tuition covers only a fraction of
the total cost of their education, which is paid for by the state,
donors, and accumulated institutional capital."
"College students seem more immature than ever before, and, as a
consequence, more likely to bring disgrace upon themselves and their
institutions. Tom Wolfe was not exaggerating in
I Am Charlotte Simmons. You just have to watch the news to know how
serious the problem of character has become at American universities."
"Parents, legislators, administrators — are you reading this? If you
want educated, disciplined graduates who are willing to work hard and
become productive citizens — who will not disgrace you — then you have
to reverse the de-professionalization of college faculty members."
I differ with Dr. Benton on his last statement. It could be that we have
different concepts on what is meant by being a professional, I take the
stock meaning of someone who has obtained a position that requires an
extensive educational background.
Addendum 6-12-06 more bloggers weigh in on this essay. From
Moscow Education
Take a look at his “Tough-Love
Manifesto”. Here is the top-level outline he provides:
-
Students are not customers. Teachers are not employees.
-
Students and teachers have obligations to each other.
-
Here is what I expect from students… (8 bullets that will
make most students change sections for a professor with no
expectations).
-
Here is what students can expect from me… (18 bullets that
you normally expect from either a lecturer or someone who is on
tenure track).
This really is a totally excellent article
and Joanne
Jacobs
In
A Tough-Love Manifesto for Professors in the Chronicle of Higher
Education, Thomas H. Benton, an English professor, argues that
professors are setting low expectations, enabling "a student culture
of self-indulgence."
At many institutions, courses have been gutted to the point
that students receive high grades for minimal effort, and the lowest
grade many professors can risk assigning is a "B+." Even that will
produce imperious complaints from students who think they are
destined for greatness: "I worked really hard. Your class is not
fair. Raise my grade or I'm taking it to the provost. Just wait till
you get your evaluation!"
The consumer mentality of students results in their desiring
less rigorous instruction because they are paying more for it. They
use the cost of tuition — which, I acknowledge, is far too high — as
a justification for lowering standards. So they will pay again later
when they discover that their degrees are a form of inflated
currency and that employers will not treat them like little geniuses
but expect them to actually work without complaining. Even if one
accepts the instrumentalist view of education, we do our students no
favors by letting them leave with so little knowledge and so much
attitude.
Counting teaching assistants and adjuncts, "it's probably safe
to say that more than two-thirds of college teaching is now done by
people who are routinely punished for maintaining standards. The
professional survival of untenured faculty members depends on
processing large numbers of students without making waves."
Benton has just received tenure so he can practice tough-love
teachng without fear of poor evaluations affecting his career. I
notice he's still writing under a pseudonym, however,
Posted by joannej at June 10, 2006 05:06 AM
Students often postpone
required readings and assigned preparations, making it hard for them to
understand their classes the next day. Gradually, lectures and
discussions that were once interesting start to seem boring and
irrelevant, and the temptation to skip classes becomes greater and
greater, especially when the classes are in the morning. Sometimes
students arrive late with -- in my opinion -- insufficient shame,
closing the door behind them with a bang. Slothful students regard
themselves as full of potential, and so they make a bargain: "I will be
lazy now, but I will work hard later"
"Harvey C. Mansfield, a
professor of government, reminded colleagues at the Tuesday meeting that
there are plenty of pitfalls to evaluations. He said that evaluations
promote “the rule of the less wise over the more wise … on the
assumption students know best.”
4-27-06 A UI
internal study claims that most of our junior and senior students
study 15 hours a week or more for classes,
a promotional poster. I'm not
sure that this is something that should have been made public. That's
well short for success at university-level studies. For example, see
this
workshop for Washington state high school students explaining that
2-3 hours of study time per credit hour is required for university-level
work. This translates into 30-45 hours per week. Other universities'
positions on study
time,
link 2, link 3,
link 4,
link 5. Most universities seem to recommend 30 hours per week.
That's still on the light side. At least one
faculty
member states that for the sciences, math, and engineering it should
be 32 to 48 hours per week. I concur, with the addition that average "A"
student's study time is more towards the upper end. It's clear our
students are not reaching that level. What does this say about our GPA
at this university? The average university student may very well spend
more time watching television
than studying.
Addendum 5-1-06 more
links on the number of hours of study per credit hour:
From their web site:
"Do not be deceived by our course schedule; the large amounts
of free time implied simply do not exist. If you are enrolled in
at least 12 semester hours, you are considered a full-time student. Why
is that? The general rule is that a student should spend at least 3
hours of study per day for each hour of course credit. Therefore in an
average week you should spend:
12 in-class hours/week
+ 36 study hours/week (12 x 3)
48 total hours/week
Or, to put it differently, 75% of what you accomplish is done
on your own. This may be vastly different from your experience in
high school."
- This work load is expected of scientists and engineers in the post
graduation working world. See this study by the
National
Science Foundation.
-Commentary from
University Diaries blog -NY
Times Article
Among the findings he cites: over four years, students in science
and engineering tend to get worse at writing, not better, and students
not in science or engineering experience a similar decline in
quantitative reasoning. [The absence of a required core of
serious courses will do that to you.] Students tend to improve
at critical thinking, but not by much, and the very process of
fulfilling the requirements for a major can sometimes have a dumbing-down
effect. [Paging Creative Writing.] A great many majors,
Mr. Bok says, impose a lot of requirements without really teaching a
student how to think deeply about a subject. [And some subjects
- Communications, Psychology - aren’t deep.]
The
comments in bold italics are from the Universities Diary blogger.
"WASHINGTON - Nearing a
diploma, most college students cannot handle many complex but common
tasks, from understanding credit card offers to comparing the cost per
ounce of food."
No comment needed here.
"the median student
would actively participate in his or her education instead of treating
it as a passive activity much like they approach getting a suntan:
Spread out the towel and lay back waiting for knowledge to pour over
them and through osmosis makes them smarter. And if they don’t learn
anything the professor must obviously have been a cloudy day."
"Worse still, if administrators weigh evaluations for tenure and
promotion there is a resulting perverse incentive for faculty to
degrade the integrity of the institution."
From
SCSU Scholars:
"I do not comment on a
faculty member's student evaluations in my recommendation for
promotion and tenure unless I also have some assessment that education
has occurred."
My note - insofar as I can
tell, the UI judges teaching solely based on student evaluations of
teaching. We do not have any measure of the extent of student learning
here. Maybe that's how we end up on lists such as this one:
-
"It's the only reform I've seen in 30 years that has made a difference in academic achievement,"
-
Even in Cambridge, which resisted MCAS, school officials concede the test has put the focus on achievement.
I think that exit exams are a
much needed standard in higher education too.
Clearing the hurdle of standardized tests is a path to upward
economic mobility. Preparing students for such eventualities is not only
“fair”, it is within the best interests of preparing students for
LIFE!
Thomas Sowell
Comments
"Charles Miller, a
business executive who is the commission's chairman, wrote in a
memorandum recently to the 18 other members that he saw a developing
consensus over the need for more accountability in higher education."
Kati Haycock, a commissioner who is director of the Education Trust
in Washington, which has supported standardized testing, said in an
e-mail message: "Any honest look at the new adult literacy level data
for recent college grads leaves you very queasy. And the racial gaps are
unconscionable. So doing something on the assessment side is probably
important. The question is what and when."
"In addition, there has been growing attention to how many college
students drop out and how poorly even graduates perform in the workplace
and on literacy tests in an era of rising global competition. The
National Assessment of Adult Literacy, given in 2003 by the Department
of Education, found that less than a third of the college graduates it
surveyed demonstrated that they were able to read complex English texts
and draw complicated inferences."
Sad to say, business
models are being widely applied in academe. Here's a little essay I
wrote critiquing the idea that the student is a "customer." Most of my
B school colleagues thought I was being too fussy and conservative and
were not persuaded.
...You may be right that
it is harder to do away with student evaluations than to change grade
inflation. Students now feel that they have the right to make professors
accountable to them through evaluations. And the administrators now feel
the need to have an objective evaluation of how professors teach.
Unfortunately, they only use student evaluations to do that. Student
evaluations are the only ones professors get a most places; they're the
only evaluations that we faculty members receive at Harvard. How good a
teacher you are turns out to be how good the specific students in your
course think you are...
...Up until the late 1960's, the only student evaluations at Harvard
were in an unofficial guide. That guide became highly political and
critical. To protect the faculty, the administration developed more
scientific surveys. So student evaluations were created with good
intentions at the beginning, but the result has been to subject
professors to the verdict of student opinion. Student evaluations are
usually done hastily at the end of the course, before the substance of
the course has really sunk in. We should ask students how they feel
about a course a year later, or even 10 years later...
From a British professor in
that discussion: ...The British system is infinitely harder on
students than in the US. I recently attempted to give a C+ to a weaker
student in the US and she was distraught. Tears flowed and she was
inconsolable...
They turn, then, to
various forms of standardized testing. When the grades of an
undergraduate have an unpredictable relevance to a standard measure
performance....
.....Because they do not, we turn to the GMAT, LSAT, GRE, or MCAT,
to take four famous examples. These tests normalize the results from the
standards-free zone of American higher education. The students who
aspire to law or medical school all have good grades, especially in
history or organic chemistry. In some cases, a student’s college grades
may prove little more than his or her ability to fulfill requirements
and mean considerably less than the results of a standardized test that
attempts to identify precisely what the student knows that is relevant
to the next level of academic activity.
Professors are responsible for knowing the subjects
they teach well enough to be able to recognize and gauge the extent and
quality of student learning ¾and
commit to grading academic merit accordingly, based on rigorous
standards. Abdicating this responsibility to the vacuity of postmodern
relativism, along the lines suggested above, is unethical; grade
inflation is contrary to academic duty.
When the test was last
administered, in 1992, 40 percent of the nation's college graduates
scored at the proficient level, meaning that they were able to read
lengthy, complex English texts and draw complicated inferences. But on
the 2003 test, only 31 percent of the graduates demonstrated those
high-level skills. There were 26.4 million college graduates.
"In a well-known
study, a professional actor was hired to deliver a non-substantive
and contradictory lecture, but in an enthusiastic and authoritative
style. The audience, consisting of professional educators, had been
told they would be listening to Dr. Myron Fox, an expert on the
application of mathematics to human behavior. They were then asked
to rate the lecture. Dr. Fox received highly positive ratings, and
no one saw through the hoax.(14)
Later studies have obtained similar results,(15)
showing that audience ratings of a lecture are more strongly
influenced by superficial stylistic matters than by content."
-
10-27-04 A good
web site from
a concerned scientist.
-
01-20-04 A
commentary from Craig M. Newmark Associate Professor of
Economics at North Carolina State University about the expectations
regarding learning in higher education.
-
01-20-04 Greater
Expectations report from the American Association of Colleges
and Universities.
-
A view of how teaching should be evaluated from the National
Academy of Sciences.
-
A synopsis of that NAS study from the Journal
of Chemical Education. Highlights:
-
A survey
of faculty and student opinions regarding SET from Cal State
Fullerton.
A few highlights from the faculty (208
participants):
-
If you were to RAISE standards for grades in
your class, would it affect your student evaluations?
Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed (65.4%* or 136) reported
that higher standards would result in lower evaluations
-
If you were to INCREASE the amount of CONTENT
(material) in your classes, would it affect student
evaluations? About two-thirds (65.9%*) responded that
increasing content would decrease student evaluations, against
4.8%
-
Does the current system of promotion and
tenure encourage faculty to LOWER their standards?
70.2%* said "yes" against 28.8% who said
"no."
-
Faculty
respondents feel that only about 60% of the students graduating
from their departments "possess the general education,
specific skills, and knowledge base that should be required of a
graduate"
A few highlights from the student survey (142
participants)
-
92.3% (131*) gave higher ratings to a class
with "light" content (less than 100 pages to read in a
semester, and nothing else to do outside of class) than to a
course with "heavy" content (800 pages to read and
homework assignments)
-
97.9% (139* of 142) gave higher ratings to a
course with "very easy" standards than to a course
with "very hard" standards. The "very easy"
standards course was described as follows: "This instructor
gives most students As and Bs, even those who are struggling
with the material or who have not been diligent in attendance
and study. Only the most clueless student will get a C in
this class
Conclusion: Student Evaluations May Harm
Education
...The evidence reviewed here indicates that many faculty
believe that the incentive system (using student evaluations for
promotion and tenure decisions) puts them in a conflict of interest
between making changes that would improve student learning and
making changes that would improve student evaluations...
.
Another
comment
on the Cal State Fullerton survey
-
Grade
Inflation - A Crisis in College Education by
Valen E.
Johnson Professor of Biostatistics, University of Michigan and
Los Alamos National Lab. A
review of that book can be found here.
From that review:
Columns
from Thomas Sowell,
economist, and educator at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
-
A study
regarding the validity of SET from the Department of Mathematics
from Texas A&M University.\
-
A study
from Cornell University
-
A letter
by a Professor of Accounting at LSU.
-
A letter
from a Professor of English from Montana State University
-
Results
from a UW study regarding the link between grades and SET.
-
A letter
from a Professor of English at Rutgers University.
-
Gradeinflation.com more Links
at a University of Florida Web site.
-
A Professor
of Psychology describes
how SET invade academic freedom in a peer reviewed journal. A
summary can be found here.
-
An article
from a Professor of Ethics at Arizona State University.
-
The
President
of Miami University of Ohio discusses grade inflation. He is the
only university president that I know of that actually discusses the
topic or academics in general. The rest seem to be too busy building
palatial
recreational facilities. Another link
and another.
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