It turns out that writing on the issue of whether Rate My Professors should be used to rank colleges is a popular topic. My previous blog post on the topic, in which I discuss why the website shouldn’t be used as a measure of teaching quality, was by far the most-viewed post that I’ve ever written and got picked up by other media outlets. I’m briefly returning to the topic to acknowledge a wonderful (albeit late) statement released by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, the data source which compiled the Rate My Professors (RMP) data for Forbes.
The CCAP’s statement notes that the RMP data should only be considered as a measure of student satisfaction and not a measure of teaching quality. This is a much more reasonable interpretation, given the documented correlation between official course evaluations and RMP data—it’s also no secret that certain disciplines receive lower student evaluations regardless of teaching quality. The previous CBS MoneyWatch list should be interpreted as a list of schools with the least satisfied students before controlling for academic rigor or major fields, but that doesn’t make for as spicy of a headline.
Kudos to the CCAP for calling out CBS regarding its misinterpretation of the RMP data. Although I think that it is useful for colleges to document student satisfaction, this measure should not be interpreted as a measure of instructional quality—let alone student learning.
Robert Kelchen 