🚀 go-pugleaf

beliavsky@aol.com wrote:

<snip>

> The following paper, which can be downloaded from
> http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=426763 (membership
> is required but is free), confirms your view that student satisfaction
> should not be overweighted as a measure of teaching quality. Objective
> measures of student learning should be given more weight.
> 
> Web-Based Student Evaluations of Professors: The Relations Between
> Perceived Quality, Easiness, and Sexiness
> JAMES FELTON
> Central Michigan University - Department of Finance and Law
> JOHN MITCHELL
> Central Michigan University - Department of Finance and Law
> MICHAEL STINSON
> Central Michigan University - Department of Computer Science
> Abstract:
> College students publicly rate their professors' teaching at
> RateMyProfessors.com, a web page where students anonymously judge their
> professors on Quality, Easiness, and Sexiness. Using the data from this
> web site, we examine the relations between Quality, Easiness, and
> Sexiness for 3,190 professors at 25 universities. For faculty with at
> least 10 student posts, the correlation between Quality and Easiness is
> 0.61, and the correlation between Quality and Sexiness is 0.30. Using
> simple linear regression, we find that about half of the variation in
> Quality is a function of Easiness and Sexiness. Accordingly, these
> results suggest that about half of the variation in student opinion
> survey scores used by universities for promotion, tenure, and teaching
> award decisions may be due to the easiness of the course and the
> sexiness of the professor. When grouped into sexy and non-sexy
> professors, the data reveal that students give sexy-rated professors
> higher Quality and Easiness scores. Based on these findings,
> universities need to rethink the use of student opinion surveys as a
> valid measure of teaching effectiveness. High student opinion survey
> scores might well be viewed with suspicion rather than reverence, since
> they might indicate a lack of rigor, little student learning, and grade
> inflation.
> 
> Keywords: Teaching, Evaluation, Student Opinion, Halo Effect
> JEL Classifications: I21, J44, M51
> 

Administrators don't care.  By relying almost solely upon student 
evaluations, their jobs become easier.  They don't have to take 
responsibility, or risk, for sacking or retaining someone.  The students 
know that.