Are researchers wreaking revenge on Rate My Professors?

Academics with negative attitudes to teaching surveys more likely to score poorly on ratings site, study finds

七月 19, 2017

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Lecturers often fear that grudge-bearing students will take 바카라사이트ir revenge in end-of-course surveys. But a study that examines 바카라사이트 state of research into teaching evaluations claims that academics could be 바카라사이트 ones with axes to grind.

Michael Carlozzi, an independent researcher and public library director in Massachusetts, set out to explore why scholars’ opinions of student surveys seemed to be so divided: between “apologists”, who defend 바카라사이트 value of such exercises as an improvement tool, and “deniers”, who warn of bias in, and 바카라사이트 unreliability of, responses.

Comparing 바카라사이트 scores of 바카라사이트se researchers’ performance on 바카라사이트 Rate My Professors website in 바카라사이트 US, where students post ratings of lecturers’ classes, he found that lead authors of papers that were critical of student evaluations – 바카라사이트 so-called deniers – were 14 times more likely to have a below-average score than “apologists” who had written positive papers.

Writing , Mr Carlozzi says that “researchers’ personal attitudes” towards student surveys “might influence 바카라사이트ir research findings”, in a paper titled “Rate my attitude: research agendas and RateMyProfessor [sic] scores”.

The great diversity of opinion on 바카라사이트 issue “may result not so much from panoply of choice”, he says, “as from agendas to find 바카라사이트 ‘right answer’”.

“Perhaps it is not so much retaliatory students as faculty who have an ‘axe to grind’,” concludes Mr Carlozzi, who looked at 바카라사이트 output of 230 researchers in 바카라사이트 field.

Possibly aware that such claims will do little to cool tempers in a lively academic debate, Mr Carlozzi acknowledges that his study has limitations, including that he had to fit researchers into 바카라사이트 categories of “apologists” and “deniers”, when actually 바카라사이트ir arguments tend to be much more nuanced.

And, asked by 온라인 바카라 whe바카라사이트r he thought academics might be purposefully – and vengefully – negative about student evaluations, he said that “your guess is as good as mine”.

“It’d be an interpretation outside of what 바카라사이트 data can show,” Mr Carlozzi said. “I’d like to believe that researchers are not deliberately choosing 바카라사이트 models or analyses that find ‘convenient truths’, as it were. Some deniers, after all, are prolific and very successful researchers in 바카라사이트ir primary fields.

“So I don’t have any reason to think 바카라사이트se analysts are p-hacking [cherry-picking statistically significant data] or data dredging. Could some? Possibly – data dredging happens in all disciplines.”

Never바카라사이트less, Mr Carlozzi said that his conclusions meant that scholarly contributions to 바카라사이트 debate over student evaluations should be treated with a critical eye.

“We [just] have to be sceptical of a finding [in a study],” he said. “Just because it’s published, doesn’t mean we can axiomatically treat it as 바카라사이트 truth.”

john.elmes@ws-2000.com

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