CUE Discusses Changes In Course Guide Structure

In response to complaints from professor who said they left the course evaluation guide issued by the student-faculty Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE) was overly subjective in its evaluations, the committee yesterday discussed structural changes to the annual guide.

While the committee is not likely to make any formal recommendations to the Faculty Council regarding the guide, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education Steven E. Ozment said yesterday that he would invite editors of the guide to the next CUE meeting to hear yesterday.

The changes proposed to deal with the problems of subjectivity and reliability were a different statistical approach, and tailor-made questionnaires for each field.

"I've heard from more than one source that the CUE guide is becoming more and more like the Confi[dential] Guide," Ozment said, referring to the subjective guide to courses, published annually by The Crimson.

"To me, that means people feel the guide it too subjective," he added.

Professor of Biology Robert M. Woollacott cited the lack of reliability of the statistical analysis that appears with each write-up in the CUE guide.

"The statistics imply a basis of credibility. This is a misuse of scientific data," he said.

"What do you base a five or six [out of seven] on?" asked student representative Ellen Havdala '88 adding, "It seems so arbitrary."

Woollacott proposed that statistics used in course evaluations be based on a one-to four-star rating, likening it to a system used for rating restaurants and movies.

Woollacott added that he felt problem sets are important learning devices and should be included on the CUE guide questionnaires for science courses.

Harry R. Lewis '68, McKay Professor of Computer Science, agreed with the idea of custom-made questionnaires, adding that the quality of reading for computer science courses was not important, and should not be a part of an objective evaluation.

Faculty CUE Review

Faculty members of the committee appeared to be in unanimous support of continuing the tradition of faculty review of questionnaires after final grades have been submitted

"You don't know if you're a bumbling idiot on the lecture podium unless you've read the questionnaires," said Woollacott, adding "I don't think I would allow my course to be evaluated if I couldn't see each of my students' responses to the questionnaires."

Woollacott added that he distrusted the average ratings that the CUE guide publishes in addition to its writeups of courses.

"If the average rating of a course is between five and six, then the faculty is as good as the students," he said, adding "71 percent of you get honors, and 71 percent of us get good ratings."