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.
The author claims that to increase the employability of graduates of Omega University, the student evaluation of professors must be terminated. The author's reasons for this is that the professors from Omega gave higher grades since the inception of the new system, thus increasing the overall student grades of which the potential employers are suspcious. The author also compares with an Alpha University whose employability is better.
Students evaluating the effectiveness of their professors is an excellent feedback mechanism if used appropriately. It provides information to the professor on how their teaching is being received by the students, and if needed, how to change the way of teaching the new concepts. The problem with this is this can be manipulated. The professor can purposefully provide higher grades to students making them happy, and students would provide a better feedback about that professor as they got higher grades. This is very beneficial to the professors as the university sees that the feedback for the said professor is very positive. To tackle this issue, the university should not judge everything based on the student feedback. If the student provides feedback and the professor's grade is final, the students can directly manipulate their grades to be high by providing a false but better feedback about the professor. There should be more mechanisms to decide the grade of a student before graduating from a university.
Potential employers not only see the present grades, but they also have access to the grades of the previous batches. If the employers are suspicious of higher grades, they usually keep a higher cut off for the students to attain the employment. Thus, the sudden fall in number of graduates being hired from Omega university cannot be solely attributed to this new feedback mechanism, but has to be analyzed by providing tests and exams regarding the employability to the students before graduating and measure their performances.
The author claiming that Alpha university having a better performance than Omega University is not sufficient evidence, as we are not sure if the Alpha university follows the mechanism of grading and student evaluation process like Omega University. Alpha University may be using the student evaluation, but have better professors who do not want to game the system, and students who are smarter than the other university. So until we understand the working of Alpha University, we cannot blindly throw away a system developed for this university claiming that the other university has higher employability. All factors must be considered.
Thus, the arguments put forth by the author for abolishing the student evaluation system is weak and insufficient. There are a lot more factors that should be considered when the employability of students are being checked, and when comparing to other universities. Hence the Omega University should work on analysing itself and its policies before making big changes.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 475 350
No. of Characters: 2487 1500
No. of Different Words: 198 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.668 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.236 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.869 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 192 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 142 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 115 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 82 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.619 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.409 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.619 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.323 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.529 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.11 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 157, Rule ID: AGREEMENT_SENT_START[1]
Message: You should probably use 'reason'.
Suggestion: reason
...fessors must be terminated. The authors reasons for this is that the professors from Om...
^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 357, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
... the potential employers are suspcious. The author also compares with an Alpha Univ...
^^^
Line 9, column 267, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
...d when comparing to other universities. Hence the Omega University should work on ana...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, hence, if, may, regarding, so, thus, as to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 28.0 28.8173652695 97% => OK
Preposition: 52.0 55.5748502994 94% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2541.0 2260.96107784 112% => OK
No of words: 475.0 441.139720559 108% => OK
Chars per words: 5.34947368421 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.66845742379 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.96075606126 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 203.0 204.123752495 99% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.427368421053 0.468620217663 91% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 805.5 705.55239521 114% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 7.0 1.67365269461 418% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 60.187725977 57.8364921388 104% => OK
Chars per sentence: 121.0 119.503703932 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.619047619 23.324526521 97% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.52380952381 5.70786347227 44% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.279656253383 0.218282227539 128% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0943350077513 0.0743258471296 127% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0601856272051 0.0701772020484 86% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.163852498063 0.128457276422 128% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0479443831989 0.0628817314937 76% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.1 14.3799401198 105% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 40.69 48.3550499002 84% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.1 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.05 12.5979740519 112% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.22 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 105.0 98.500998004 107% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 12.3882235529 97% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.