Turn About's Fair Play!
T HE college professor is likely to be keenly interested in knowing just how he rates in the opinions of his students. Trading upon this interest and acting upon the belief that the average college student is a rather shrewd judge of the strengths and weaknesses of his professors, Morehead State Teachers College has commenced a long-range program of student rating. It should be stated at the outset of this report that Morehead's rating program originated with, and was carried through by, the faculty and not by the administration. The latter was favorably inclined toward our efforts, and at no stage of the game did interference from that source take place. In fact, we attribute whatever measure of success we attained to the fact that the faculty was in the driver's seat throughout. Any innovation, if it is to be successful, must be preceded by a campaign of education, and our first step was in this direction. At Morehead, one faculty meeting each month is solely under the direction of the faculty, operating through an organization known as the Committee for the Improvement of Instruction. The subject of faculty rating having received much discussion, pro and con, upon the campus, the Committee decided to devote a faculty meeting to it. One month before the scheduled meeting, an instructor who had exhibited some interest in the subject was asked to make a survey. In the preparation of his report the instructor relied upon three main sources of information: educational magazines and books, rating scales and comments thereupon which he received from other educational institutions by request, and interviews with members of our faculty and those of neighboring educational institutions who had had some experience with rating scales. The report stressed these points: benefits of rating scales, types of rating scales, contents of rating scales and how to make them, the question of who may initiate the use of rating scales and of who may use them (that is, do the rating), and the frequency of their use. The discussion which followed was spirited, as one might have expected, but, upon the whole, a favorable impression seemed to have been created. Before the meeting adjourned, the faculty voted that the Committee select or devise a rating scale and present it for consideration at its next meeting. Thus armed with authority, the Committee set about its task. The first decision the members had to make was whether to adopt one of the scales that they possessed or to