TEACHSOC: Re: ESPECIALLY FOR JAY AND KATHLEEN..

[Stephen Sweet]

Michael- Just a couple of thoughts. One of my lectures in my family course compares qualitative and quantitative appraisals of marriage satisfaction.  Quantitative sources such as the GSS show very high levels of satisfaction, but ethnographies show ambivalent appraisals of marriage quality even in "successful" marriages.  I use this to illustrate how a different indicator or system of measuring reveals different types of information about families, but not that ethnographies are superior to surveys.   My suspicion is that if you imposed a quantitative means of recoding qualitative comments, the two would be strongly correlated. In other words, many harsh comments (or no comments at all) would be offered for those who rated professors very low in numerical terms.  Very favorably related professors would receive greater support in qualitative measures. But this will not be a linear relationship.  Your question gets to the deeper issue of how quantitatively oriented student teaching evaluations are used.  Sadly, I think often times the instruments are used in the following way: professor X scores 3.9, and professor Y scores 4.1, therefore professor Y is a superior teacher.  This (of course) misses the central point that both professor X and Y are doing satisfactory work from the students' perspective.  But if Professor X scores 1.7, and most other professors score 4.1, it suggests the need for further analysis into the reasons for student dissatisfaction with Professor X.  The answers might be found in the qualitative comments (but also elsewhere, such as in the course, who the students are, etc.).  Likewise, if qualitative comments are greatly at odds with quantitative indicators, it suggests further analysis as well.  But my suspicion is that this is not the common place event. -steve p.s. - and yes, I have similar experiences to you! At 09:24 AM 1/24/2006, Michael Klausner wrote: Greetings:   Anyone should feel free to respond to the following but *especially* Professors Howard and McKinney.   We have both quantitative and qualitative student evaluation forms for students to do. The qualitative ones ask such things as:   What did you especially like about the course and the Professor? What were his/her strengths/weaknesses? How do you think the course could be improved?   Why that is the Qualitative responses are usually much more positive than the quantitiave ones. For example, I first read the qualitative responses from students in my Intro class and based on them thought that the numerical ratings would reflect them. However, while the numerical ratings, in response to questions, were okay they, were not as good as what I expected after reading the qualitative responses.   Administrators here only see the numerical ratings. Thus people who get better qualitative ones are at a disadvantage.   Have any of you had similar experiences?   Thanks.   Michael One quick question--are students REQUIRED to fill in anything on the qualitative forms? Gerry Grzyb