Is it actually "those very students" they are preparing well or just those who, for whatever reason (possibly prior preparation), made it through the class to get to the higher level. In other words, was there selective mortality? My guess is that they just compared the upper level class performance of students in the higher vs. lower graded classes. Although they were randomly assigned at both levels, it is still possible that there was more mortality in tough profs classes than in the easier profs classes. In that case, it has less to do with preparation and more to do with culling. BTW, at our small liberal arts college, there is a negative correlation between class GPA and student evals. The highest rated profs actually have the lowest class GPAs. Once again, not cause-effect but it does go against conventional wisdom.
As to the take home message for dealing with younger profs, this research showed that younger, less experienced profs produced students who didn't do as well as the students of older, more experienced profs in the upper level classes. I don't know what you can do with that information except note that teaching experience seems to improve outcomes. I don't know how you would know which of the younger profs had the most potential (except by comparison with others with their level of experience). I also have to say I wasn't real impressed with the authors of the research in communicating aspects of their "rigorous" study. It seems the rigor ended with the random assignment (which they kind of lucked into, working as they were at the Air Force Academy). Regarding the external validity of this study to other (less authoritarian possibly) academic environments, the authors note "it offers degrees in fields roughly similar to those of a liberal arts college, and because students are drawn from every Congressional district, they are geographically representative." That is quite humorous, actually. The author, Carrell, who is described as "an assistant professor economics at the University of California at Davis" on the basis of having "attended the academy as an undergraduate and the University of Florida as a grad student, and [teaching] at Dartmouth as well as the Air Force Academy and [UC] Davis" has drawn the empirical conclusion with regard to external validity that, “All students learn the same.” I'm no fan of so-called learning styles but I hardly think that experience as a grad student at UF, and teaching at Dartmouth, UC Davis and Air Force Academy is a very representative of college students in America (although it is possibly geographically representative since it covers New England, the South, the West and the Rocky Mountain states). Rick Dr. Rick Froman, Chair Division of Humanities and Social Sciences John Brown University Siloam Springs, AR 72761 [EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ________________________________ From: Christopher D. Green [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, July 11, 2008 8:50 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Cc: Andrew Winston Subject: [tips] Does Professor Quality Matter? Evidence from Random Assignment of Students to Professors In science programs, it appears that tough, senior professors of introductory courses (who give lower grades and are evaluated more poorly by students) actually do a better job of preparing those very students for the harder upper level courses they will have to take later in their degree programs. Here's a report on the study (in which -- Hallelujah! -- students were randomly assigned to professors): http://insidehighered.com/news/2008/07/11/evaluation And here's the abstract of the actual study: http://www.nber.org/papers/w14081 So, punishing younger professors who have lower teaching evaluations and whose students have lower average grades (e.g., by making it harder for them to attain tenure, etc.) may actually damage the quality of the academic program by favoring teachers who prepare students less well (but give better grades and get better evaluations). Of course, there are also people who are just lousy teachers, but the only way to distinguish the two groups is to see how well their students do later, in upper level courses taught by other people, not by looking at their own avg grades and evaluations. No such relationship was found in humanities courses, perhaps (the authors speculate) because upper level humanities courses do not depend so heavily on specific skills learned in introductory courses. Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 [EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ "Part of respecting another person is taking the time to criticise his or her views." - Melissa Lane, in a Guardian obituary for philosopher Peter Lipton ================================= --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
