Question

Faculty members at teaching universities are expected to teach well. Deans and department chairs often use student evaluations of teaching to determine the quality of a professor’s teaching. While evaluations and rewards are based primarily on the quality of teaching, faculty members also or expected to do research. This helps them keep abreast of developments in the discipline and builds self-esteem. In the latest benchmarking study, Higher Ed University noticed that 1) Higher Ed U. did poorly in terms of research output. However, 2) student grade point averages at Higher Ed U. were significantly higher than at other schools. Offer economic explanations and potential solutions for each of these two observations.

Answer 1

Faculty is evaluated on basis of :

• Research output and
• Student grade point averages.

Higher Ed University performed well in the student grade point averages but its score was not satisfactory in research output.

Research output requires specific knowledge and dedication that may compromise attention of teachers towards its students. Further, if teachers are more attentive towards its students, then they can not spare sufficient time for conducting research and development. Hence, both appear to be mutually exclusive.

University must increase number of teachers so that a teacher can balance between the research and teaching. Now teachers can teach only specialized subject and further, can devote time on research output.