Hi First, I strongly agree that the proposed Texas policy is deeply misguided. Giving $10k on the basis of course evaluations would produce all kinds of nefarious behavior on the part of unscrupulous faculty (not any of us, of course!), even if those behaviors are NOT the primary or even a major contributor to evaluations. The mere belief that they increase evaluations would be enough. And of course some unsavory things do help (e.g., giving out chocolates during the evaluations). Of course, once everyone practices such things or the practices are disallowed, any differential effect is lost.
Second, Fish is factually incorrect about a number of things (for the things I cite here and below, Harry Murray from Western Ontario where I did my graduate work is the primary source ... Harry is a former learning person who early on turned his interests and talents to course evaluations). University student evaluations obtained AFTER graduation correlate very highly with evaluations obtained in class. It is perhaps worth remembering that Fish's earlier article, the basis for the second article, were comments from people about the High School level. Even there, I am not as confident as Fish appears to be that properly designed student evaluations would fail to identify accurately teachers who better taught material that students were less than thrilled with (parsing sentences anyone?). Murray also trained graduate students to sit in on classes and rate the teachers (no grades or other biases involved for them). The graduate student ratings correlated highly with the in-class ratings. I'm always surprised by hyper-critics of course evaluations (not that the evaluations are flaw-free), especially psychologists. It would almost seem to be an ideal situation for the evaluation of psychological traits (like clarity, organization, stimulating interest, ...) ... you have a relatively large number of individuals with multiple exposures to the target person (and multiple comparison individuals carrying out the same activity, teaching) generally asked to assess a number of relatively concrete traits (aptitudes, behaviors, whatever). Wouldn't it be great to have similar situations in which to evaluate a whole host of psychological traits? Often the best we can do is seek peer or family evaluations. Third, on Scott's question about the trajectory of course evaluations. One perhaps relevant observation that Murray (and I presume others) have observed is increased evaluations across repeated teaching of a course. So certainly experience appears to help. Things do get more complicated when different stages of career are considered, as one may be teaching different courses, student cohorts change with time, content may change, and so on. I don't know if anyone has tried to tease these things apart. Fourth, I agree strongly that a balanced approach to "confusion" is essential for what university students should be learning. As one perhaps over-simplified example that pops up here now and then, consider APA writing style. At what point should university students be simply told "use APA style" and then left to their own devices to find out what it entails and to adopt the requisite practices? Is an opportunity to develop some higher competency lost if we elegantly structure a series of steps and exercises that lead to proper APA style in our students? It is an interesting question how these two approaches would impact course evaluations ... perhaps differently for some items (clarity) than others (helps to learn skills)? Another pressure to provide clear instructions and steps is that it is often easier for us, as well as the students. That is, explicitly teaching proper APA style is probably more efficient than having students try to figure it out and providing them with guidance and corrective feedback. One great benefit of the internet is undoubtedly the ready access to a huge storehouse of information about numerous skills students need to acquire, perhaps (because of all the "wrong" information available) making the delegation of responsibility to students more feasible. Take care Jim James M. Clark Professor of Psychology 204-786-9757 204-774-4134 Fax [email protected] >>> "Christopher D. Green" <[email protected]> 22-Jun-10 12:36:56 PM >>> Stanley Fish tells us why student course evaluations (and other immediate forms of teacher "assessment") are of limited value. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/deep-in-the-heart-of-texas/?hp Socrates got it right: Before you can figure out what is true, you have to first dismantle what you think you know. Put another way, there are no blank slates. Students come into classes with beliefs and assumptions. They may not like you challenging those -- and may mark you down on evaluations for trying -- but that's your job. If you're a real teacher, it may be your calling. Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 [email protected] http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ ========================== --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. 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