Nancy wrote:
This hasn't changed and it is simply more unwarranted fear that somehow standards are slipping. They were never as high as we imagined them to be. ------------------------ Miguel wrote: That's an interesting empirical question. It would be great if someone could collect old and new syllabi, exams, etc. from, say, Psych. 101, Research Methods, etc., from senior faculty members of several universities and carry out a content analysis to determine the extent to which standards may have changed or remained the same. As I have taught for over 20 years and have kept many of these materials, my impression -without it being a systematic analysis- is that standards have, in fact, declined somewhat. Then, again, that's based on an N = 1 and it is largely subjective. ------------------------ I believe Miguel's N of 1 study wouldn't necessarily reveal a true slipping of standards even if all TIPSters participated because of its nature as a within groups study. It has been my observation (and this would also be open to empirical test) that faculty tend to loosen their standards over the years as they become more comfortable with their own ideas of what is valuable within their discipline and what is unnecessary. Young faculty have the fresh memory of grad school and often seem to have forgotten that the purpose of a graduate education within a discipline is quite different from the purpose of an undergraduate education within the discipline and even more the purpose of an undergraduate education for those outside of your discipline. As reality meets this misguided idealism that your undergrads should somehow emulate grad students, faculty eventually adapt their standards and content to the needs of an undergraduate education. If we were able to compare syllabi from an earlier era (which I think might be available in the archives of some of our institutions) to the current era, it would be my expectation that standards haven't changed as much. What might have changed is the time and work required to complete some tasks. Doing statistics by hand, for example, would have been a much more time-consuming process than today's use of statistical software. Not to mention the process of paging through Psychological Abstracts by hand, finding the articles in the stacks and writing papers by hand and then pounding them out on the old electric (or manual) typewriter. We should probably distinguish between work that was more difficult and time-consuming because of a lack of technology and having higher standards. Rick Dr. Rick Froman, Chair Division of Humanities and Social Sciences John Brown University Siloam Springs, AR 72761 [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=6656 or send a blank email to leave-6656-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
