Professors
rate reliability of ratemyprofessor.com
By Christine Harmon
Online Forty-Niner
Contributing Writer
Professor rating Web sites such as RateMyProfessors.com and Cal State Long Beach’s
own Beachpride.com not only have an effect on students, but professors and their
teaching methods too.
“
Every semester millions of students use RateMyProfessors.com to plan their class
schedules, which in turn improves the quality of their educations,” said
site founder John Swapceinski in Wired News. “Since inception, RateMyProfessors.com
has grown like wildfire.”
CSULB is one of the highest ranking schools, currently listed as No. 27 with
over 17,000 rankings, on RateMyProfessors.com’s “Most Rated Schools” list.
This Web site has become a part of students’ lives and discussions about
it can be heard not only on campus, but within the classrooms too.
Sarah Sorbel, junior marketing major, talked about how management/HRM professor
Ted Teweles, who has a rating that says, “My favorite teacher so far in
college!” introduced the class by referencing RateMyProfessors.com.
“
He’s a funny guy,” Sorbel said.
“
Most things he says are in a joking manner. The first day of class, he discussed
how different professors structure classes.
He said, ‘This is the way I used to structure my class, but then I went
onto RateMyProfessors.com...’ He then gave us the shifty eye look. The
class thought it was hilarious.”
Sorbel said it was a great way for Teweles to break the ice.
“
I’m glad professors are aware that the Web site is out there,” she
said. “It may give them incentive to structure classes
differently or cater
to students’ needs more.”
Students have given Teweles copies of his ratings in the past, and he admitted
to not only looking at his ratings, but at other faculty members’ ratings
as well.
“
On the whole, you can get some good information out of it, especially when you
see trends,” he said. “When you see similar comments over a year
or two, it starts to build credibility.”
Although Sorbel felt professors should know how their students are rating them,
she believed it should remain a tool aimed for students.
“
I don’t necessarily think professors should bring it up in class,” she
said “It’s a resource for students to use, not for professors to
use against students.”
For Dennis Ellsworth, a 22-year-old sociology major, Assistant Professor Leakhena
Nou’s confession of discontent with her ratings gave him insight to the
significant impact the Web site can have.
“
Nou mentioned it the week after we got our first test scores back,” Ellsworth
said. “She was in a very disturbed mood like her dog just died. She said
people in her other classes wrote negative responses on her teaching style. You
could tell by the look on her face and tone of her voice, these comments really
hurt her and bothered her.”
Nou mentioned she had an idea who the students were and the comments were based
on personal feelings toward her, not the actual teaching, Ellsworth added.
“
At first the class thought her intentions were to find out who wrote it, but
her actual intentions surprised us,” Ellsworth said.
“
She asked us if we really enjoy the class and respect her as a teacher to go
on the Web
site and counteract the bad comments with our own good comments.”
Nou, who has a three out of five in overall quality on the Web site, agreed RateMyProfessors.com
offers unbalanced opinions, expressing students would benefit more if they took
the time to get to know their professors before reaching a conclusion.
“
In general, I don’t think it gives a full impression of the professor’s
performance,” Nou said.
She added that professors’ intentions are to teach students with all sincerity
and grade on the basis of a student’s performance.
“
That’s our job,” she said. “We’re not here to
fail students.”
Nou offered an alternative solution for students who are having difficulty in
their classes.
“
It would be better for students to express their feelings directly to the professor
if they’re having problems,” she said.
Ellsworth saw the experience as a learning one, for him and Nou.
“
After seeing how much this bothered her, I felt really bad for her,” he
said. Realizing it was her first semester, and that she was trying hard to be
liked, I could understand where her concerns were coming from.
Not only is the site known for grievous complaints, but it allows anyone to post
ratings, whether they’re students or not, multiple times.
“
I’ve heard plenty of professors talk about the Web site. Some of them have
even admitted to leaving comments for each other,” said Elisa Herrera,
25-year-old history major.
Christopher Karadjov, assistant professor in the journalism department said students
who post ratings almost always have a defined motive.
“
It’s not entirely reliable,” he said “You get the extremes
either from who really likes you or who don’t like you at all. You don’t
get the middle,” Karadjov said.
Psychology professor Miranda Barone defined this problem as self-selection bias
and described this as a sampling problem producing invalid results.
“
The ratings are not scientifically collected and should not be discussed
in class,” she said. “They are a list of personal opinions from only
a few students. I think the site can be misleading.”
Karadjov, who has a four out of five in overall quality, added the site can be
informative for students, but isn’t as thorough as it should be.
“
It tells who’s nice, but not necessarily who’s the best,” he
said. “It didn’t tell me exactly what I was doing right or what I
was doing wrong.”
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