Argument9

zyqingUID: 2605201

9The following appeared in a memorandum from a dean at Omega University.
"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 thirty percent. Potential employers apparently believe the grades at Omega are inflated; this would explain why 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 now terminate student evaluation of professors."

The dean concludes that Omega University(OU) should terminate student evaluation of professors to enable its graduates to secure better jobs. To support the conclusion the dean cites that since OU implemented a new procedure that encouraged students to evaluate the teaching effectiveness of all their professors, the students began to obtain a higher grade but the employment rate was lower than the employment of nearby Alpha University(AU). The dean’s conclusion suffers form several flows and is therefore unconvincing.

First and foremost, the dean overlooks the employment rate of graduates is determined by many factors, not just by whether the grades of students are inflated. It is entirely possible that other more important factors make the AU has a higher employment rate. For example, perhaps the AU has a better reputation among the potential employers. Or perhaps the graduates from OU set higher requirements for their first jobs than graduates from AU do. Or perhaps the AU supply much more help for graduates to assist them in finding jobs more quickly. Without ruling out these factors, the dean cannot hastily judge it is the inflation of grades result in the comparative low employment rate of OU.

Second, the dean fails to establish relationship between terminating student evaluation of professors and graduates’ getting better jobs. The dean provides no evidence that the students’ evaluation of professor lead to higher grades of students. It is entirely possible that the evaluation inspire professors pay more attention to their students which encourage student to work more hard and get higher grades. So the dean cannot make sure terminating evaluation will necessarily cut down the students grades. That means it is entirely possible the terminating student evaluation cannot eliminate the doubt of grades inflation. Moreover, the dean does not justify that the terminating student evaluation will improve the quality of education. All these make the dean’s conclusion unreasonable.

Third, the dean does not inform us what the level of grades of OU is before the evaluation. Perhaps the grades of students in OU are very low so they stay on a normal level although they have risen by 30 percent, which will not result in the doubt of inflation from potential employers. And the dean also fails to inform us about the grades of students from AU. Maybe students from AU get higher grades than students from OU. In short, lacking information of the definite grades of two universities, we can hardly judge whether the inflation of grades is responsible to the comparatively lower employment rate of OU.

In sum, the dean fails to provide important evidence needed to support the conclusion. To strengthen the conclusion, the dean must rule out other potential factors which will affect the employment rate of graduates greatly. The dean must also supply more information about the definite grades of two universities and establish the logical relationship between the terminating student evaluation of professors and graduates’ getting better jobs.

zyqingUID: 2605201

感觉这篇写的好累啊