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John W. Moore’s perceptive editorial (1) brings into focus the fact that quantitative approaches may be made to qualitative concepts, such as creative art or the quality of teaching.
A good example of this is the use of student evaluations as indicators of teaching quality. This is a sometimes controversial area although the consistency of the data is well established. I conducted two studies of anonymous ratings of faculty in a department over a ten-year period, using more than fifty thousand individual evaluations, and the results showed remarkable consistency (2). They showed the “learning curves” of junior faculty as these instructors became more experienced with large classes. They also showed that for most faculty, favorable evaluations decreased as class size increased. For a minority, however, the evaluations remained reasonably constant even though the class size increased by two orders of magnitude. It is harder to teach as well in large classes as in small classes but some teachers can do it.
Despite the fact that there is no consensus on exactly what comprises good teaching, evaluation of teaching by students is meaningful. I stress, however, that evaluation by students should never be the sole criterion by which the quality of teaching is gauged.
Literature Cited
- Moore, J. W. J. Chem. Educ. 2007, 84, 7.
- Toby, S. J. Chem. Educ, 1988, 65, 788; 1993, 70, 465.
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