Fifteen years ago, Omega University implemented a new procedure that encouraged students to evaluate the teaching effectiveness of all their professors. Since that time, Omega professors have begun to assign higher grades in their classes, and overall student grade averages at Omega have risen by 30 percent. Potential employers, looking at this dramatic rise in grades, believe that grades at Omega are inflated and do not accurately reflect student achievement; as a result, Omega graduates have not been as successful at getting jobs as have graduates from nearby Alpha University. To enable its graduates to secure better jobs, Omega University should terminate student evaluation of professors.
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
Students evaluation is one of the important tools which allows students to inform the institution on the teaching effectiveness of a particular professor anonymously. Without this except for few, most of the students refrain themselves from commenting on professors teaching worrying about the consequences one has to face. The given argument speaks about the implementation of student evaluation in a particular university and its effect on the job market. Based on some of the evidences provided the argument concludes that dropping the student evaluation might be the only way to bring the university to a better position in the job market.
In supporting the conclusion the argument provides the evidence on the increase in the student grade average by 30% after the implementation of the student evaluation. Pecentages can be misleading, without knowing the base grade average one can’t actually comment on how good was the increase. While one can argue that professors might give high grades just to evade from getting bad evaluations, not all students evaluate a professor just based on grades. There are students irrespective of the grade given will evaluate just based on how the overall teaching was.
Secondly, when speaking about the decrease in the jobs, argument doesn’t share information on how much the decrease was. Was the Omega University students being offered more jobs than the Alpha University students before fifteen years? By what percent did the Omega Unviersity students get more jobs than the Alpha University students back then? Answering these questions will shed light on if really the grade inflation led to the decrease in jobs. If the Omega university students were offered less number of jobs than Alpha University students then the grade inflation has nothing to do with this even if the inflation was actually happening.
Decrease in the number of jobs, could be because of several reasons other than just the grade inflation. Industry requirements fifteen years back could have been totally different from what it’s today. Alpha university might have added new programs to keep up with the industry changes. While Omega University didn’t care to study the market changes and bring in new programs which could have increased the number of jobs the students might have obtained. This being true then the entire argument would be wrong.
Finally, with lack of evidence the conclusion made by the argument doesn’t sound rational. Also, given to the fact that student evaluation really helps the institution in understaning the teaching effectiveness of a particular professor terminating it will have its consequences. Students will have no way to share their thoughts anonymously leading to several other problems that are currently being avoided.
Sentence: Also, given to the fact that student evaluation really helps the institution in understaning the teaching effectiveness of a particular professor terminating it will have its consequences.
Error: understaning Suggestion: understanding
argument 1 -- not OK
argument 2 -- not OK
argument 3 -- OK
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Let's analyze the structure of the statement and argue accordingly:
condition 1:
Fifteen years ago, Omega University implemented a new procedure that encouraged students to evaluate the teaching effectiveness of all their professors. Since that time, Omega professors have begun to assign higher grades in their classes, and overall student grade averages at Omega have risen by 30 percent.
//There might be other reasons that cause this inflation. To illustrate, the student profile of Omega University might had changed due to the improvements in their program and their emphasis on student satisfaction...
condition 2:
Potential employers, looking at this dramatic rise in grades, believe that grades at Omega are inflated and do not accurately reflect student achievement; as a result, Omega graduates have not been as successful at getting jobs as have graduates from nearby Alpha University.
//the curriculums that are applied in Alpha University might be more up to date and they might answer the demands of employers better. They might include training and internship opportunities to their curriculum...
conclusion:
To enable its graduates to secure better jobs, Omega University should terminate student evaluation of professors.
//maybe there are other factors preventing students from getting better jobs.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 2.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 444 350
No. of Characters: 2306 1500
No. of Different Words: 202 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.59 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.194 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.755 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 158 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 139 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 109 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 59 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.143 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.898 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.524 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.329 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.563 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.146 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5