What If Milgram Controlled Student Marks
Evaluating Essay
The two articles “Student Grades and Average Ratings of Instructional Quality: The Need for Adjustment” and “What if Milgram Controlled Student Grades? A Simple Game for Teaching the Concept of Authority” that we had to read and annotate I found very interesting. The game they played and the statistics they showed in the two articles were so true. You see these things happening all the time through school, at home, and even at a work place. At school it tends to be some ridiculous assignment do in a short amount of time. Everyone has experienced it in a home environment rather they were the one of authority or not, like getting grounded. With the second article on relating teaching to grades I can relate to that slightly because in high school I had a teacher that didn 't teach well and …show more content…
students grades suffered due to it. The credentials I’ll be discussing between the two articles are the rhetorical situation, the topics of the articles, the level of education the authors have, the reliability of them, and the currency of the articles. So is there a link between someone with authority like a teacher and a student’s grades?
Article 1
Article 1 is about the connection of a students’ grades and the average ratings of instructional quality. There has been a positive correlation found between the course grades that the students receive and the ratings that they give their instructors. It seemed in courses were the average grade received was relatively higher than other courses received a higher rating by students than instructors who gave an average grade that was low. The study involved 165 undergraduate courses taught by 24 instructors at Minot State University between 1997 and 1998 (Ellis 2). The ratings were both based on a 10-point scale, 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest. The purpose of the article was to show that there is a direct correlation between grades received by students and ratings given to instructors. The audience of the article is to more of a higher education group of people. The courses were from college and not somewhere else and that the article would be more towards those of higher education. The stance of the article is that there is a connection between ratings given to instructors and the grades given to students. The genre of the story I think is realistic fiction because the things talked about in the article and the correlation they have is true. That is not 100 percent true though because I do believe some teachers are great instructors but just grade harder to really push us at our current level in that course. If we are receiving grades higher than what we should actually receive we are will not be bettering ourselves. The media or design is of an article which looks like to be electronic source. The design of it is to describe a connection between the ratings and the grades received. Is there truly a connection between the ratings given to instructors and the grades given to students or is it that higher ratings are given only because they receive a higher grade? The topic of the article is that the grade a student receives can have an effect on the rating they give their instructors. This is relevant because they have showed statistics of a positive correlation between the two. They created a scatter plot of the data received and found that when students received higher average grades they gave a higher rating (Ellis 3). Next I will go into the level of education of the authors for relevance. The main author of this article Lee Ellis has a PHD and so that makes it more reliable than if he were not. . The authors are experts and that would pile on that this article is reliable. Last the currency of the articles have an Impact on the reliability of the source. The article came out in September/October of 2003. With it being a decade old a lot could have changed but also not much either. The information gathered was 15 years ago. Students could be more lenient on rating their instructor at this time in age or they could not. A lot could change in a decade, just look at apple and the cell phones we had to what we had now. We understand things differently through time and know a better understanding of things. Students could have a better understanding on that even though an instructor grades harshly but is good at what they do but get rated poorly because they do not like what they get. In conclusion is there truly a connection between the ratings given to instructors and the grades given to students or is it that higher ratings are given only because they receive a higher grade. I believed the article to be a reliable source. The article may have been a little aged but that does not have a huge impact on the outcome of the study from then and if the same study would be done in the present.
Article 2 Article 2 is about a simple game used for teaching the concept of authority.
This has been done many times and has come up with good results. Students no matter how ridiculous the assignment given to them by their instructor will do it anyway. The game will take no longer than 10 minutes and involves no more than a pen and paper of the students. It is best to do the game after the students have had a few classes, so that rapport with students and credibility with a teacher has time to develop (Winston 2). At the beginning of class the instructor will give the instructions for the assignment and the supplies the students need to get out for it. After the assignment the instructor will talk to the class about the assignment and what they thought about it. The instructor then asks the class if they wanted to do the assignment and all of they shouted out no. The only reason they did it was because a teacher made the request and so they obeyed it. After all of this the students understand the notion of power and that they will obey the request of those who control their grades. Do all students do what their teacher asks no matter how outrageous the assignment may
be?
The purpose of the article is to show that students will do anything if someone of authority will ask them to do it. The students said they agreed to do these requests because the teacher controlled their grades and they did not want them to be affected in any way for not agreeing to it. The audience is to teachers mostly I think because then they can do the request as well but if students were to see this article they would be more reluctant to doing the game. I think it is to more of a higher level of education of students for doing the game because back in high school and middle school students are more rebellious and unwilling to do things they do not like to do. I’m sure if an instructor teaching to those kinds of students will make a variant of the game to appeal more to those students rather than giving them a huge assignment that they would not expect to be getting. From experience back in high school I would be more reluctant to be doing a 10 page assignment than doing the same assignment if not longer for a college course. It has something to do with how we all heard things about the college courses as well. We all heard of it being hard and getting 20 page papers to do, this is also a way they root out those who do not want to do assignments like that. Like a way to thin out those going into college for those who truly are willing to do them. The stance of the article is that an instructor can give a ridiculous assignment to their students and they will still do it because they control their grades. The genre of this is subjective because you could always get those rebellious students who still would not do an assignment even though it could severely affect their grade. The media or design of the article is print because it was found in a magazine and I have printed it out for my convenience.
The topic of this article is about teaching the concept of authority and how it controls students’ grades. It gives details on a game played on a group of students to see if they follow and obey the directions because their teacher controls their grades. In my personal experience I can relate to this. I’ve done many assignments over the years and I’ve had one I can recall that is similar to the game played in this article. You learn to listen to your teacher and do what they ask even if it is a ridiculous request. That is a reason why I believe this article to be reliable. They received appropriate results and I have had a background in a similar game myself to support.
Next I will go into how the level of education the author has is relevant to the reliability of the article. This article was actually the piece Fletcher was releasing when getting his PHD. Fletcher is the Assistant Professor of Sociology at Mercer College and has a PHD. This helps to make the article reliable because he has a PHD and is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Mercer College and that make this article reliable.
Last I will explain how the currency of the source helps to give support to the reliability of this article. The article was released on April 2003 but the information gathered was around five years before that. That puts the information gathered for this article to about 15 to 16 years ago. This does put a little bit of a strain on the relevance but I think that the information is still accurate today. The concept of authority will not change that easily in that short amount of time. Authority seems to be stronger in the early years of life like in elementary and in college. The middle through high school age for kids is more like the rebellious time and less likely to do their work.
In conclusion do all students do what their teacher asks no matter how outrageous the assignment may be? No I believe not every student will do what their teacher asks but a great majority of them would which makes this slightly reliable. The author of this article having a PHD is helpful in making this more reliable and the currency of this article. If the article was maybe twenty years old then it may be it would not have been a good source but it was a decade and a half old so it makes it a better source. All in all I believe this article to be reliable because it is not too outdated, the author is well educated, and the topic is something I can relate to and think it makes this a reliable article.
Works Cited
Fletcher, Winston. "What If Milgram Controlled Student Grades? A Simple Game for Teaching the Concept of Authority." American Sociological Association, Apr. 2003. Print. 3 Oct. 2013.
Lee, Ellis, and Donald M. Burke, Patricia Lomire, and David R. McCormack. "Student Grades and Average Ratings of Instructional Quality: The Need for Adjustment." Taylor & Francis, Ltd., Sept.-Oct. 2003. Print. 3 Oct. 2013.
The two articles “Student Grades and Average Ratings of Instructional Quality: The Need for Adjustment” and “What if Milgram Controlled Student Grades? A Simple Game for Teaching the Concept of Authority” that we had to read and annotate I found very interesting. The game they played and the statistics they showed in the two articles were so true. You see these things happening all the time through school, at home, and even at a work place. At school it tends to be some ridiculous assignment do in a short amount of time. Everyone has experienced it in a home environment rather they were the one of authority or not, like getting grounded. With the second article on relating teaching to grades I can relate to that slightly because in high school I had a teacher that didn 't teach well and …show more content…
students grades suffered due to it. The credentials I’ll be discussing between the two articles are the rhetorical situation, the topics of the articles, the level of education the authors have, the reliability of them, and the currency of the articles. So is there a link between someone with authority like a teacher and a student’s grades?
Article 1
Article 1 is about the connection of a students’ grades and the average ratings of instructional quality. There has been a positive correlation found between the course grades that the students receive and the ratings that they give their instructors. It seemed in courses were the average grade received was relatively higher than other courses received a higher rating by students than instructors who gave an average grade that was low. The study involved 165 undergraduate courses taught by 24 instructors at Minot State University between 1997 and 1998 (Ellis 2). The ratings were both based on a 10-point scale, 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest. The purpose of the article was to show that there is a direct correlation between grades received by students and ratings given to instructors. The audience of the article is to more of a higher education group of people. The courses were from college and not somewhere else and that the article would be more towards those of higher education. The stance of the article is that there is a connection between ratings given to instructors and the grades given to students. The genre of the story I think is realistic fiction because the things talked about in the article and the correlation they have is true. That is not 100 percent true though because I do believe some teachers are great instructors but just grade harder to really push us at our current level in that course. If we are receiving grades higher than what we should actually receive we are will not be bettering ourselves. The media or design is of an article which looks like to be electronic source. The design of it is to describe a connection between the ratings and the grades received. Is there truly a connection between the ratings given to instructors and the grades given to students or is it that higher ratings are given only because they receive a higher grade? The topic of the article is that the grade a student receives can have an effect on the rating they give their instructors. This is relevant because they have showed statistics of a positive correlation between the two. They created a scatter plot of the data received and found that when students received higher average grades they gave a higher rating (Ellis 3). Next I will go into the level of education of the authors for relevance. The main author of this article Lee Ellis has a PHD and so that makes it more reliable than if he were not. . The authors are experts and that would pile on that this article is reliable. Last the currency of the articles have an Impact on the reliability of the source. The article came out in September/October of 2003. With it being a decade old a lot could have changed but also not much either. The information gathered was 15 years ago. Students could be more lenient on rating their instructor at this time in age or they could not. A lot could change in a decade, just look at apple and the cell phones we had to what we had now. We understand things differently through time and know a better understanding of things. Students could have a better understanding on that even though an instructor grades harshly but is good at what they do but get rated poorly because they do not like what they get. In conclusion is there truly a connection between the ratings given to instructors and the grades given to students or is it that higher ratings are given only because they receive a higher grade. I believed the article to be a reliable source. The article may have been a little aged but that does not have a huge impact on the outcome of the study from then and if the same study would be done in the present.
Article 2 Article 2 is about a simple game used for teaching the concept of authority.
This has been done many times and has come up with good results. Students no matter how ridiculous the assignment given to them by their instructor will do it anyway. The game will take no longer than 10 minutes and involves no more than a pen and paper of the students. It is best to do the game after the students have had a few classes, so that rapport with students and credibility with a teacher has time to develop (Winston 2). At the beginning of class the instructor will give the instructions for the assignment and the supplies the students need to get out for it. After the assignment the instructor will talk to the class about the assignment and what they thought about it. The instructor then asks the class if they wanted to do the assignment and all of they shouted out no. The only reason they did it was because a teacher made the request and so they obeyed it. After all of this the students understand the notion of power and that they will obey the request of those who control their grades. Do all students do what their teacher asks no matter how outrageous the assignment may
be?
The purpose of the article is to show that students will do anything if someone of authority will ask them to do it. The students said they agreed to do these requests because the teacher controlled their grades and they did not want them to be affected in any way for not agreeing to it. The audience is to teachers mostly I think because then they can do the request as well but if students were to see this article they would be more reluctant to doing the game. I think it is to more of a higher level of education of students for doing the game because back in high school and middle school students are more rebellious and unwilling to do things they do not like to do. I’m sure if an instructor teaching to those kinds of students will make a variant of the game to appeal more to those students rather than giving them a huge assignment that they would not expect to be getting. From experience back in high school I would be more reluctant to be doing a 10 page assignment than doing the same assignment if not longer for a college course. It has something to do with how we all heard things about the college courses as well. We all heard of it being hard and getting 20 page papers to do, this is also a way they root out those who do not want to do assignments like that. Like a way to thin out those going into college for those who truly are willing to do them. The stance of the article is that an instructor can give a ridiculous assignment to their students and they will still do it because they control their grades. The genre of this is subjective because you could always get those rebellious students who still would not do an assignment even though it could severely affect their grade. The media or design of the article is print because it was found in a magazine and I have printed it out for my convenience.
The topic of this article is about teaching the concept of authority and how it controls students’ grades. It gives details on a game played on a group of students to see if they follow and obey the directions because their teacher controls their grades. In my personal experience I can relate to this. I’ve done many assignments over the years and I’ve had one I can recall that is similar to the game played in this article. You learn to listen to your teacher and do what they ask even if it is a ridiculous request. That is a reason why I believe this article to be reliable. They received appropriate results and I have had a background in a similar game myself to support.
Next I will go into how the level of education the author has is relevant to the reliability of the article. This article was actually the piece Fletcher was releasing when getting his PHD. Fletcher is the Assistant Professor of Sociology at Mercer College and has a PHD. This helps to make the article reliable because he has a PHD and is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Mercer College and that make this article reliable.
Last I will explain how the currency of the source helps to give support to the reliability of this article. The article was released on April 2003 but the information gathered was around five years before that. That puts the information gathered for this article to about 15 to 16 years ago. This does put a little bit of a strain on the relevance but I think that the information is still accurate today. The concept of authority will not change that easily in that short amount of time. Authority seems to be stronger in the early years of life like in elementary and in college. The middle through high school age for kids is more like the rebellious time and less likely to do their work.
In conclusion do all students do what their teacher asks no matter how outrageous the assignment may be? No I believe not every student will do what their teacher asks but a great majority of them would which makes this slightly reliable. The author of this article having a PHD is helpful in making this more reliable and the currency of this article. If the article was maybe twenty years old then it may be it would not have been a good source but it was a decade and a half old so it makes it a better source. All in all I believe this article to be reliable because it is not too outdated, the author is well educated, and the topic is something I can relate to and think it makes this a reliable article.
Works Cited
Fletcher, Winston. "What If Milgram Controlled Student Grades? A Simple Game for Teaching the Concept of Authority." American Sociological Association, Apr. 2003. Print. 3 Oct. 2013.
Lee, Ellis, and Donald M. Burke, Patricia Lomire, and David R. McCormack. "Student Grades and Average Ratings of Instructional Quality: The Need for Adjustment." Taylor & Francis, Ltd., Sept.-Oct. 2003. Print. 3 Oct. 2013.