Some subscribers to Phys-L might be interested in a recent post "Responses to 'Why Do Colleges Tie Academic Careers To Winning the Approval of Teenagers?' " [Hake (2013)]. The abstract reads:
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ABSTRACT: As of 12 Nov 2013 there had been 19 responses to my post "Why Do Colleges Tie Academic Careers To Winning the Approval of Teenagers?" [Hake (2013)] at <http://bit.ly/1bHiHwp>. The above title is taken from Lyell Asher's (2013) WSJ piece "When Students Rate Teachers, Standards Drop: Why do colleges tie academic careers to winning the approval of teenagers? Something is seriously amiss," copied into the APPENDIX of Hake (2013) at <http://bit.ly/1bHiHwp> in accord with the "Fair Use" provision of U.S. Copyright Law.
Since many of the responses were from those in "Teaching and Learning Centers" (TLCs) <http://bit.ly/1aRpLu0>, and since SETs are accepted as the primary gauge of teaching effectiveness in most TLCs, it's little wonder that proSET responses outnumber antiSET responses 12 to 7.
However, in my view the proSET position is seriously challenged by Herb Rotfeld's (2013) thoughtful antiSET arguments. Rotfeld wrote at <http://bit.ly/1dMhvtU>: "While not to dispute the potential value of student input, the inherent problem comes from the existence of the SETs. All other factors of teaching evaluations take more effort, time and interpretive nuance. Everyone who defends the value of the student scoring data states they should not be used to rank order faculty, but time and again, because they provide the only data that are quantified-appearing, standardized across a campus and easy to read, that is exactly how they tend to be used. Maybe SETs would go down to their proper role if they were not campus standardized, quantitative, and provided with such fanfare. But until that happens, my stance is that the SETs must die so that education can live."
REFERENCES [URL shortened by <http://bit.ly/> and accessed on 13 Oct. 2013.]
Hake, R.R. 2013. "Responses to 'Why Do Colleges Tie Academic Careers To Winning the Approval of Teenagers?' " online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives <http://bit.ly/1aDcvD7>. Post of 12 Nov 2013 16:47:49-0500 to AERA-L and NetGold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to various discussion lists and are also on my blog "Hake'sEdStuff" at <http://bit.ly/1hDOd5D> with provision for comments.