On 21 Mar 2002 09:38:42 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Dennis Roberts) wrote: >there are many reasons or possible reasons ... consider some of the following > >1. standards for what constitutes quality work in graduate school have >declined over the decades I was in graduate school during the '60s and we weren't so super either. I am not teaching anymore, but the students of just a year or two ago seemed pretty sound to me. > >2. pressure (explicit or implicit) to make graduate school easier and "more >user friendly" has increased over the years (as we focus on making higher >education more accessible) One major "user friendly" advance has been the use of computers. I am typing this on a computer that would have looked "amazing" back in '63. Is it easier? Sure. Remember getting draft after draft in and out of typists' hands? How about all those nice canned stat programs that fit on to a laptop these days? Handy, you betcha.
Also, is easier access to higher education a bad thing? > >6. faculty committees, for whatever reasons, have increasingly allowed >students to get more and more assistance with their projects (for design, >analysis, writing, editing, etc.) I wonder if George has access to a stat lab. Most major universities have one usually staffed with graduate statistics students. I worked in one and saw many come in with their data already in hand indicating that it was now time to make sense of it all :-))) I would urge George to seek out the stat lab staffers and get some free assistance. Independent individual research does not necessarily mean one can't get advice. Any committee worth its salt should have lots of suggestions about the design, analysis, etc. > >7. and finally, as institutions pressure faculty more and more to bring in >money and produce "income" for the school and make the school look good, >there is less in the reward structures and, less desire on the part of >faculty .... to spend more time WITH students (it is not in the faculty >member's best P and T interests) Research grants and publishing are measures of an institution's success. Wouldn't you agree? Time spent with students and productive faculty research need not be mutuallly exclusive. Some of my best professors were those who were skilled researchers. > >anyone want to add to the list? In the old days, prior to the dissertation data collection phase came a written research proposal. In it, the appropriate test statistic was cited depending on the methodology. Committees made suggestions and decisions concerning appropriate analyses. The committee would ultimately sign off on a proposal that would demonstrate the candidate's ability to conduct independent research. . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
