3 research outputs found
On bias in social reviews of university courses
University course ranking forums are a popular means of disseminating
information about satisfaction with the quality of course content and
instruction, especially with undergraduate students. A variety of policy
decisions by university administrators, instructional designers and teaching
staff affect how students perceive the efficacy of pedagogies employed in a
given course, in class and online. While there is a large body of research on
qualitative driving factors behind the use of academic rating sites, there is
little investigation of the (potential) implicit student bias on said forums
towards desirable course outcomes at the institution level. To that end, we
examine the connection between course outcomes (student-reported GPA) and the
overall ranking of the primary course instructor, as well as rating disparity
by nature of course outcomes, for several hundred courses taught at Virginia
Tech based on data collected from a popular academic rating forum. We also
replicate our analysis for several public universities across the US. Our
experiments indicate that there is a discernible albeit complex bias towards
course outcomes in the professor ratings registered by students.Comment: WebSci'19 Companion Proceeding
Exploring the context of course rankings on online academic forums
University students routinely use the tools provided by online course ranking
forums to share and discuss their satisfaction with the quality of instruction
and content in a wide variety of courses. Student perception of the efficacy of
pedagogies employed in a course is a reflection of a multitude of decisions by
professors, instructional designers and university administrators. This
complexity has motivated a large body of research on the utility, reliability,
and behavioral correlates of course rankings. There is, however, little
investigation of the (potential) implicit student bias on these forums towards
desirable course outcomes at the institution level. To that end, we examine the
connection between course outcomes (student-reported GPA) and the overall
ranking of the primary course instructor, as well as rating disparity by nature
of course outcomes, based on data from two popular academic rating forums. Our
experiments with ranking data about over ten thousand courses taught at
Virginia Tech and its 25 SCHEV-approved peer institutions indicate that there
is a discernible albeit complex bias towards course outcomes in the professor
ratings registered by students.Comment: ASONAM '19. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with
arXiv:1905.0227