Are online instructors afraid to give bad grades because of instructor reviews?

I was just talking to a friend who teaches online for a big university. She made a disturbing comment that I would like to share and get your opinions on.

She stated that many online instructors are under extreme pressure to give good grades to students even when they are not deserved. She said that, because students have the opportunity to review the instructor and the end of most classes, the instructors are afraid to give low grades to students because the students will retaliate with a poor review on the instructor. She says that many universities have the policy of firing instructors who have a number of bad reviews. Thus, even the students who should fail will, in some schools, get a B.

How can an online professor do his/her job effectively that way? If he/she gives the lousy students bad grades, he/she will lose the job? This is disturbing.

 

Welcome to the revenue-driven model. It isn't specific to for-profit education. Online classes are heavily driven by revenue. If students drop out, less revenue comes in. If students are unhappy, they are more likely to drop out. If an instructor gives a bad grade, the student is unhappy. You can follow the logic here.

Of course academic integrity does play a role, but it is a counterbalance, and sometimes it isn't all that powerful when the revenue is highly valued.

 

It is not specific to for-profit education, nor is it specific to online education at all. It occurs just as frequently in on-ground education. Perhaps the biggest determinants are whether one is an adjunct faculty (who may believe that low student evaluations and high student attrition will jeopardize future teaching assignments) or whether one is a newer full-time faculty member up for promotion or tenure at an institution where student evaluations carry a lot of weight.

There are actually a number of reasons for grade inflation--revenue is just one of them.

 

My worst teachers ever were tenured professors at the university who really didn't care if they spent 30 minutes rambling on incoherently instead of teaching. My Chemistry I and Physics II class were this way. The teachers were so old, I think they had forgotten how to do the problems. They actually would try to explain how to do a homework problem and couldn't make it through in some cases. Thats when I decided to stop showing up for class and to just teach myself these topics.
You would be surprised how much more you learn when you don't have to go to class and listen to a tenured professor talk about politics or how the university didn't require air conditioning in 1969 in a Chemistry class.

 

The simple answer is 'yes'.

 

instructor performance

:saevil:I did not personally experience grade inflation (I struggled to maintain my GPA at ~3.2) but I assume we all understand instructor performance issues are nothing new, or that these issues apply to online adjuncts exclusively. A number of years ago, I was in a non-profit B&M military/corporate friendly weekend technical management degree program taking upper level courses.

A ‘industry expert’ management adjunct came breezing into a class of adult students acting as if he was at State U with a bunch of freshmen, and lasted exactly one class!

Of the 32 students, 31 were in the dean’s office protesting his attitude and competency, and he was gone. The other student would have been late for his evening job.

With only 8 class meetings of 4 hours each, it doesn’t take much to upset adult students that are paying tuition and struggling with fulltime professions to start a revolt. Bad attitudes and unreasonable expectations are not things that adult students suffer easily.

 

Student evaluations have done much to harm higher ed.

 

Personally, I have not problem failing people. I also have no problem working with the ones that want to try.

 

Well, I don't know about this issue in the instruction side. However, I barely kept up with my GPA for my undergraduate degree from Troy University. However, I had different experience at Capella University.

 

What was your experience at Capella?

 

I teach very regularly for 3 schools (have some at a 4th and used to be with a 5th). I'd say that class average is generally B. I would say that there are 2 Ds for every 15 students. I get high quality feedback for engaging in the course. I recently had a student note in their feedback (anonymously) that they received a D but knew that that was fair and that they had never had a more engaging instructor.

I've never received negative things from the university. Once, I was asked to grade an assignment that I had refused to grade due to plagiarism concerns. Other than that, no negative ramifications of giving bad (when deserved!) grades.

 

I'll note that I have an uncle who teaches for a VERY prestigious B&M school with online courses. He told me that "everyone gets an A" because he is unwilling in losing his standing with the university due to negative feedback.

It would be my opinion that he is at greater risk for negative feedback from the university.

 

Yes, that's the catch-22 of this situation. An instructor is afraid to give bad grades because of student reviews, but then the university comes down on the instructor anyway because he is handing out too many "A's". I think you are doing it the right way. Do a great job, give honest grades and then let the chips fall where they may.

 

It depends on the school, at Devry for example, student evaluations only count for 10% of your overall instructor score in order to prevent grade inflation. Other schools follow a similar approach.

TUI University is at the other extreme, not only course evaluations are the main instructor performance indicator but school suggests that students that fail assignments should be allowed to resubmit which means that as instructor you would want to avoid failing people as you might end working double by having to grade twice the same assignment.

So sadly, grade inflation is partly because fear of retaliation. However, good schools tend to put more emphasis in good teaching and performance rather than student feedback that might be bias due to grade inflation.

 

I actually has the opposite experience; one class I taught was small, and they were all outstanding students who more than earned the "A" grades they received. However, the school asked for a written explanation (via e-mail) as to why every class member received an "A", and some faculty supervisors inspected the online classroom afterwards (they agreed with me).

 

It is easy to earn a grade at Capella University if you can provide barely minimum works. I generally rate Capella course fairly because I take notes how long the instructors get back to me.

I have great experience at Georgetown University, and usually I also evaluate fairly on the instructors. One of the class, I received an "A-" because I turned my take home final late by 2 hours. But I rate the instructor really high due to his quality of teaching, and class material.

My lowest grades at Georgetown University are two "B's" one of them I rate the instructor really high, and the other one is really low.

The low one because he did not provide any notes or materials. He just taught base on his experience at his current job on Federal IT Policy. He only wrote on the blackboard, but more than half what he wrote could not readable. He randomly picked the select members for group project. I ended up did the project by myself, and devoted 30 hours on the project alone.

 

B&M students get to review their instructors, too.

 

One of my current online instructors is likely to get negative feedback from me because his course is much too easy. I'm afraid I may struggle with later advanced courses because of not getting the proper fundamentals in this prerequisite course.