ratemyprofessors.com, SIRS, and skipclasscalculator.com
I'm sure that you've heard of ratemyprofessors.com, the website that lets students praise or disrespect their professors (mostly disrespect). Since I learned about it, I've often wondered if it has any impact on course selection by students or course improvement by faculty. It's certainly an interesting read . . .
I took a look at my "profile" last week -- a few days after I read the results of my SIRS. It was interesting to compare the results from the SIRS (during semester) and ratemyprofessor.com (after final grades were posted). In my case, there wasn't much of a difference. I'm not quite sure what that means.
But if my students had used skipclasscalculator.com, I wonder whether there would be any correlation with the type of comments I read? Would there be a relationship between how students rate professors and the results of skipclasscalculator.com over the course of a semester? Any thoughts?
I took a look at my "profile" last week -- a few days after I read the results of my SIRS. It was interesting to compare the results from the SIRS (during semester) and ratemyprofessor.com (after final grades were posted). In my case, there wasn't much of a difference. I'm not quite sure what that means.
But if my students had used skipclasscalculator.com, I wonder whether there would be any correlation with the type of comments I read? Would there be a relationship between how students rate professors and the results of skipclasscalculator.com over the course of a semester? Any thoughts?
posted by Gayle Stein at
6:33 PM
13 Comments:
Dr. Stein:
I just looked at your rating on ratemyprofessors.com. I'm a senior right know in the school of engineering here at rutgers. When I first started college; first year I would say, I always gave ratings to professors on ratemyprofessors.com in hopes that they would read it and attempt to the best of their ability to improve themselves as professors, teachers and most importantly as people. Eventually I stopped doing this, as my original goal in writing those ratings was not accomplished. Over the years I surprisingly have come to realize that professors(not all) make more excuses than students do. Consistently I have witnessed professors in the classroom talk about those rating sites being biased, two sided etc.. excuses, excuses, excuses. I believe as with all people in all professions, professors should look at those ratings and not make judgments as to whether those opinions represent the truth, but rather learn what it is they can do to improve themselves based on these ratings.
I only schedule my courses based on the ratemyprofessors reviews. I'm fairly sure a significant amount of students rely on this when deciding which classes to chose. The content of any course is fairly irrelevant- it's whether it's taught well. Universities are businesses, and we're your clients. I want to research the product I'm about to consume before I make a decision. Ratemyprofessors is not disrespectful at all. It is honest and therefore more useful than any Rutgers resources. I have, likewise, rated some of my professors. I do not give them any more respect than they are due. I have had a few incredible professors about whom I have raved.
Interesting comments from our senior engineering student.... However, my own experiences have come much closer to mirroring Dr. Stein's. RateMyProf is a "wonderful" forum for students with a vendetta. When I was an undergraduate at a reasonably well regarded university, the actual evaluation scores and comments about professors were published each year in a booklet for students to buy. It was extremely useful in choosing classes. Of course, in any forum, it is impossible to avoid subjectivity-- and I am biased about the construct of subjectivity, being a social scientist-- but I think the latter format is a more valid way to constructively express things as a student AND a way to receive comments as tools for positive change for those of us who teach.
I think it's funny that Dr. Stein frames all of the feedback from students on ratemyprofessors.com in the binary of either "praise" or "disrespect" and doesn't allow for the possibility that a student might use the site to raise cogent, relevant, and thoughtful criticisms of a professor who did a less-than-stellar job. Probably because she, like most tenured educators, doesn't accept the possibility of a teacher doing a less-than-stellar job in the first place. It's about time professors stopped viewing themselves as masters of their classroom domains and started viewing themselves as employees in a service industry who are paid to impart knowledge, not to make life hard for students.
And does it make any sense to have the university SELL a listing of professor ratings? Doesn't it better serve the consumer to rate his/her contractors in a forum that ISN'T moderated and vended by the contractors? Should students have to fork over more money to gain access to that information? It is implied that in any forum like RMP.com, all comments are subjective, and no one comment or rating is a sure-fire prescription for how your experience with that professor will go. But it's an invaluable tool for the discerning student, and it doesn't deserve the ire of the faculty.
I agree with xander and I also rely on ratemyprofessor.com when it comes to picking classes. There's a big difference between a professor really teaching and caring about his/her students as opposed to just making life more difficult for students.
Xander: I don't have tenure, like many people teaching at Rutgers. Because of this, I try very hard to teach effectively, since my opportunity to teach here is dependent on doing a good job. I pay very careful attention to what my students say and encourage them to provide honest feedback throughout a semester and beyond. I have made significant changes to courses based on such feedback. I think that most of the people who teach act in the same way.
Please look at my next blog post and provide feedback--we can only teach better if students are willing to make constructive comments about what we're doing.
I'm a English major in my senior year and I definitely use RMP to pick teachers and classes. I also always leave reviews of my teachers after my semester is over. While some people may use it to trash teachers, there is definitely a large population of students who provide honest and helpful reviews. It's just up to those reading the reviews to decide whether or not to take them with a grain of salt.
@Jen G: your understanding is wrong. Education is not a consumer product. You need education just as much as univs need you, and therefore you need to do well in class. You need to adjust your thinking. Or, alternatively, don't consume the product.
As far as the ratings, it is noteworthy that the categories on RMP are quite different from the ones used by the univ to evaluate quality of teaching. Easiness and hotness are hardly relevant; it's the amount of knowledge and way of thinking a professor teaches that matter.
With all of this bad mouthing of Professor Stein, i'm going to have to step in. I looked at professor Stein's rating on ratemyprofessor.com, and I can personally say that a lot of these ratings are just not fair. Why can I say that? Because I took Professor Stein's Intro To Information Technology course in Fall 2009, my first semester of freshman year. I can say that she was an awesome professor, one that made the learning experience comfortable, especially for a student that is new to the college style of learning. To be frank, Professor Stein's teaching style is unique. She is not for everybody. But I can say that I did learn a lot from that class, and I finished with a B+. Many of the people that are writing negative reviews; not only of Professor Stein, but a lot of other professors, are people who didn't try hard enough, and now are bitter that they got what they put in.
I am not sure of the value of this posting by Dr Stein on the OIRT site. It does not concern technology; and one anecdotal impression without any qualitative or quantitative analysis of data hardly amounts to research.
A number of misconceptions have come up in the comments but I will confine myself to one. This that higher education is a 'service industry' and students are 'customers' who must be wooed.
Barring the small and scandal-ridden for-profit sector and a handful of struggling small private colleges, this model is plainly false.
(BTW, for-profits and small colleges typically charge 3 to 6 times as much as Rutgers or other leading public universities do).
Coming to the dominant Universities, let us consider the case of our neighbor Princeton U. It rejects 13 out of 14 applicants. If it was a business, this would make *no sense*. The U. would grow until marginal cost equaled marginal revenue. Maybe by setting up 13 replica Princetons and soaking up every last tuition dollar.
(The President of New York U. perhaps inspired by the knock-off handbags on sale on the sidewalks near his office, actually set up a low-cost, knock-off NYU in Abu Dhabi. It was built by exploited immigrant laborers and is staffed by the academic equivalent of the same plus a few token NYU profs for window-dressing. The experiment has not been a success).
Returning to the US case, therefore, we have a situation where most good schools have more applicants than they can accommodate; Princeton is an extreme case.
But in general higher education is characterized by *excess demand*. High school students take SAT prep, add sports, add volunteer activities etc etc all to 'sell' themselves to the school to which they aspire.
Again contradicting a business model, despite excess demand good schools actually often 'give away' the product in scholarships etc.
Rutgers itself takes about half its applicants.
Once in, very few pay anywhere near the full cost of their educations. Some is cross-subsidized by outside research money; some from the endowment. A significant though steadily shrinking amount is from the taxpayers of the State of New Jersey.
Faculty have a professional duty to educate students as well as they can; students have a duty to themselves to apply themselves to learn.
Both groups owe an additional duty to the taxpayer who assists them in the expectation that human knowledge is being advanced by research and imparted through education.
Finally: worthwhile learning is not easy. Let me draw an analogy to learning a sport: before we build the technique into an effortless skill, we must practice, fail and try again and again. It can be frustrating.
Or let me take a not uncommon after-effect of sport: physiotherapy. A good physiotherapist forces you to stretch and strengthen in ways that you find uncomfortable - indeed painful. Sadly, that is how we get our bodies out bad habits and into better shape. There is no other way.
Learning is hard; teaching is hard. Students and faculty need to apply themselves and persevere if we are to progress.
I am not sure of the value of this posting by Dr Stein on the OIRT site. It does not concern technology...
Websites allowing students to share with each other regarding their learning experiences are technologies.
I'm a graduate student (MLIS) and the comments on RateMyProfessor for Rutgers are entirely different than those from my small, highly selective, mostly upper-middle class student body undergrad.
My undergrads comments were useful, on course content, teaching style and workload. There was always one or two that were obviously an agitated student but not the norm. Here is the reverse and the comments aren't helpful at all.
Ratemyprofessor and anything like it (including those short course evaluations) are only as useful as the effort put into them.
Look, it costs a lot of money for a college education. Most people research any product they buy or at least they should with the more expensive products. The difference between universities and other businesses is that if a university provides a bad service or product your screwed. You don't get your money back or are covered under lemon laws ect. Even as a grad student (I attended Rutgers as an undergrad and now as a grad) I always look at rate my professor. The only issue is that many adjuncts are not rated :(. I find the site to be very accurate especially with the negative feedback that has many postings on a single professor. There were times that I ignore the negative feedback and took the professor anyway in which everytime I regretted it. I advise students to be more skeptical of the highly rated teachers especially under the category of easiness. I've noticed that professors rated high in this particular category are either naive relating to the class they are teaching or don't feel like teaching and are using the job only as extra income. Professor Stein maybe you should copy the list of comments that are bothering you and ask your students to anomously rate how much they agree with each statement. You should use the comments especially if they are consistent as a chance to grow as a professor and maybe even as a person.
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