Comments on: Grade inflation and teaching evaluations http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/glencora/2011/08/26/grade-inflation-and-teaching-evaluations/ Assistant Professor, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Oregon State University Mon, 06 May 2013 04:32:43 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: John http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/glencora/2011/08/26/grade-inflation-and-teaching-evaluations/#comment-426 John Wed, 25 Apr 2012 11:12:23 +0000 http://www.glencora.org/?p=692#comment-426 Grade inflation occurs because teacher salaries and those who administer them rely on state and federal subsidies. Those subsidies (taxpayer money) are proportional to enrolled students. Fewer students means less money, lower salaries, fewer tenured professors, and more students per classroom. More responsibility for the teacher/professors.

Any program intended to raise grades will raise the grades of all students. Grade inflation. This will happen in perpetuity until the state goes bankrupt.

]]> By: Soroush http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/glencora/2011/08/26/grade-inflation-and-teaching-evaluations/#comment-200 Soroush Fri, 23 Sep 2011 08:28:56 +0000 http://www.glencora.org/?p=692#comment-200 haha,

In my bachelor, we had this online evaluation and it was mandatory with same rules, and I remember all my friends just filled the forms randomly and final rating was indicating nothing! I predict same thing will happen here, time will reveal…

p.s: I wasn’t happy with my grade :|

]]> By: Glencora http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/glencora/2011/08/26/grade-inflation-and-teaching-evaluations/#comment-199 Glencora Sun, 04 Sep 2011 20:47:27 +0000 http://www.glencora.org/?p=692#comment-199 Except that it has been found that “professors who rate highly among students tend to teach students less” in this study and reported on here.

]]> By: Sean http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/glencora/2011/08/26/grade-inflation-and-teaching-evaluations/#comment-198 Sean Sun, 04 Sep 2011 19:08:22 +0000 http://www.glencora.org/?p=692#comment-198 Heya, How about flipping the discussion around? Awesome classes will generally be perceived as easy. If you’re interested in the topic, want to learn, and are inspired by the teacher and class format, it will feel easy and you’ll likely do well. As I sit here contemplating my upcoming course, I think this concept of hard / easy is irrelevant. There is a certain amount of information and knowledge that any course must convey, but there is no reason to make that transfer difficult. Yes, some concepts are difficult but a competent teacher will find a way to make it accessible to all. This, of course, doesn’t mean everyone gets an A, but you should be inspiring all to want to achieve that level.

It is a shame, however, that universities use student evaluations as a metric for teaching performance. At least here at Brown, this was never intended to be the case, rather they provided a form for feedback between student and teacher. Sadly, they now constitute a sig. portion of ones evaluation for tenure.

]]> By: Glencora http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/glencora/2011/08/26/grade-inflation-and-teaching-evaluations/#comment-197 Glencora Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:16:25 +0000 http://www.glencora.org/?p=692#comment-197 Hey Aram – I’m not sure (I didn’t look at all the sources cited by the infographic), but I wouldn’t be surprised by such a correlation. I have heard many times students wax poetic about “easy classes”; “easy classes” tend to convey less material than “hard classes”. “easy classes” are “awesome classes” for your average student.

]]> By: aram http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/glencora/2011/08/26/grade-inflation-and-teaching-evaluations/#comment-196 aram Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:05:41 +0000 http://www.glencora.org/?p=692#comment-196 I followed that infographic until the last line, about how high teaching evaluations correlate with students learning less. Do you think that’s true?

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