The problem would be finding a metric of teaching effectiveness that’s independent of teacher performance to use in validating teacher performance as a measure.
And is ‘student retention’ an educational issue or a financial one? Or for that matter a medical one? My official position on student evaluation is that students should be evaluated frequently and rigorously. On Apr 4, 2015, at 2:22 PM, Jeffry Ricker, Ph.D. <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi all, > > We all know about the controversy surrounding the use of student course > evaluations to rate instructors’ teaching. But with the current emphasis on > student retention (e.g., the percentage of first-semester Freshmen who > enroll in second-semester classes), I’m seeing the emergence of a new metric > to rate and compare instructors: the percentage of "successful completions” > (the percentage of students earning a final grade of C or better) in their > classes. > > Many studies of first-year students have shown that successful completion of > courses is a primary correlate of retention. The funding of public colleges > often is based on formulas that use the total number of credit hours being > taken at a college to estimate the number of "full-time student > equivalents”(or something similar). It’s easier to increase this by retaining > the students you already have than by attracting new students. And with > decreasing state funding of higher education (in Arizona, annual state > funding for our community college district will be $0—yes, that’s a > zero—beginning July 1st), many colleges are scrambling to increase retention. > > Thus, some (many? most? all?) colleges are examining data on successful > completions, and even breaking it down so that one can compare different > instructors teaching a particular course. For example, yesterday, I found > data on my college’s site showing, by semester, the number of “successful > completers” in each section of introductory psychology for at least the last > seven years. I suspect that administrators at many colleges are looking more > and more closely at these data as the financial situations at their > institutions worsen. > > So my question: is there research that looks at the validity of using > successful completion data to evaluate the teaching effectiveness of > individual instructors? I’m having a bit of trouble finding good research on > this. Cn anyone help? > > Best, > Jeff > > P.S. And by the way, I’m asking because it seems likely that a major confound > would be differences among instructors in expectations and standards (i.e., > rigor of the course), even when they all are teaching a course that is > nominally the same. Paul Brandon Emeritus Professor of Psychology Minnesota State University, Mankato [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=43616 or send a blank email to leave-43616-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
