argument197 Gter四月''无名''小组第18次作业-兔兔

acmwyyUID: 2189302

TOPIC: ARGUMENT197 - The following appeared as part of a recommendation made by a faculty member to the president of a large university.

"Never once in our 150-year history as a university have we clarified our objectives. How, then, can we hope to adapt as an institution to the new challenges facing higher education. As a first step in this evolutionary process, therefore, we should send out questionnaires asking faculty members why they teach, asking students what they want from this university, and asking former students what they gained from their own education here. When the replies come in, we can tabulate them and formulate an official statement of our educational mission. This will surely result in improved programs at our university."
WORDS: 540             TIME: 0:30:00          DATE: 2006-3-18

In this argument, the author asserts that in order to adapt to the new challenges facing higher education, we need to make an educational mission for the university so that the programs at the university can be improved. The author alleges to send out questionnaires asking faculty, current students and former students about their purpose of teaching, learning and what they learned already. Then tabulate and formulate an official statement of education mission from their respond. A careful examination of the argument, we can find out several logic fallacies.

First of all, the method we choose for the survey is problematic. Sending out questionnaire as the single research method concerned in the survey is not enough. We may try to do some interview or measurement for a comprehensive information. It is likely that we don't get enough information without any interview face to face. Also, we can not get persuasive information about how students’ ability has development without some intelligence test as well as personality test. Even we assume that we can reach some conclusion through the questionnaire, it is still too vague to be informative. We find no information about how many people participated in the survey, how many of them responded to the survey, and whether the survey is statistically representative. Without this information, we can not get any safe conclusion.

Even we concede that the method used in the survey is valid, whether the questionnaire can gather necessary information about the education mission is open to doubt. First, we get no information about why ask the faculty members and why ask the two kinds of students. Second, the purpose of teaching and studying, as well as the result, does not necessarily lead to the mission of education. The mission of education may be composed by the requirement of community, the current social environment, and the status of the school as well. Third, even if the questions are reasonable, whether their responds reflect the fact us unwarranted. Teachers may provide an ideal education purpose while current students shows an ambition about future development. And former students always lead to regard themselves as have learned nothing during ivory tower ages.

Finally, even we accept the author's assumption that we got the exact educational mission, it still can not convince us that programs at the university can be improved. Many factors decide the improvement of a university altogether, including the financial condition, facilities, wage for faculty, tuition for students, and academic research. We need further information about other factors concerning the development of the university in order to assure the improvement. We also need to aware that even the programs actually get improved, we still can not reach the conclusion that we can adapt to the new challenges better. The overall success much relate to what kind of new challenge are and how competitors worked.

In conclusion, in order to get a thorough view about the problem, we need further information concerning about the correctness of the method, the legibility of the questionnaire, as well as the relationship between education mission, program improvement and adaptation of new challenge. Without accurate information about the survey, we can't draw the conclusion that we may adapt to the challenges in the higher education.