Difficulties in interpreting course evaluations: Some Bayesian insights

An investigation is undertaken of the nature of some of the difficulties encountered in interpreting accurately student evaluations of courses of instruction. Intuitive assessment of the results can be quite erroneous, especially if it is accompanied by a lack of awareness of Bayes' Theorem and the role of prior probabilities, as well as the record of the predictor, in obtaining an accurate interpretation of the results.     

Community education in the 1980s: What can we learn from experience?

The last ten years have seen a revival of interest in ‘community-oriented’ forms of education as a result of wide spread disillusionment with the trends of social change which have been experienced both in developing and in more highly developed countries. Much of the recent thinking about the dysfunctional nature of conventional schooling in poorer countries has emphasised its alien nature, regarding it as an importation ill-adapted to the development needs or cultural context of these countries. It is too often overlooked that problems of reforming or replacing conventional educational patterns largely derive from the fact that these patterns are in fact firmly rooted in the local situation and up to this time have drawn much of their strength from their very considerable success in performing the tasks allocated to them by their various clienteles. In this paper it is argued that whilst there may well be a pressing need for reform in order to meet changing circumstances and, notably, the mass education situation in which we now find ourselves, we are unlikely to achieve successful reform unless we examine the roots of our problems more thoroughly than we have often been inclined to. There is real danger that we may be carried forward on bandwagons of doubtful relevance to our real situation and that we may once again be distracted from the careful analysis of our own experience without which our judgements and decisions may well prove ill-founded.This paper seeks to examine some of that experience in the hope of identifying some of the considerations we should bear in mind as we consider the potentiality of forms of community education which are currently being urged upon us.     

The Natural Sciences in the New Universities

The introduction of interdisciplinary courses and a high level of research activity were characteristics of the science schools of the New Universities whose consequences, educational and financial, are examined in this paper.