Jim wrote:
>From: jim clark <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Hi
>
>On Fri, 26 Jan 2001, Richard Pisacreta wrote:
> > In my opinion, student evaluations are almost useless (I get good ones).
> >
> > Freshman have no basis to grade college profs.
> >
> > The #1 variable that determines course evaluation is expected grade in
> > the course. Profs who show lots of movies, drop the lowest test, let
> > attendance count for 25% of the grade, etc. tend to get good evals.
> >
> > Profs who make students work get slammed. One of my favorite evals was,
> > "Pisacreta sucks. I had to study every week in order to get a decent
> > grade."
>
>Richard does not seem to recognize the inconsistency in his first
>and later comments ... that is, he is an example of someone who
>is tough and gets good evaluations.
I was talking generalities. Sure some tough profs get good evals, but I
doubt that they are the majority.
Why wouldn't undergraduates sitting in a class for a
>semester or a year be able to evaluate whether the prof is
>organized, interesting, available for students, and the like?
In my opinion, a college freshman can only compare you to the high school
teachers that they have had. High school is a lot different than college.
"Interesting" often means a "fun" class, at least around here.
I'm sure that faculty
>evaluations suffer from many problems (what psychological
>measures don't?), but that is no reason to forgo our commitment
>to a scientific (i.e., empirical, well-founded theory) approach
>to practice ... in this case the practice of teaching.
I agree. We should use them but lessen the weight that they carry in the
light of the flaws.
Rip
Rip Pisacreta, Ph.D.
Professor, Psychology,
Ferris State University
Big Rapids, MI 49307
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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