Thoughts on Assumptions in “Exploring Some Pitfalls in Student Evaluation of Teaching”

policy were not limited to the results discussed above, Additionally, there was evidence that the positive aspects of the policy were accomplished without undue negative side effects, Of the three potential types of student abuse mentioned in the introduction, none appeared to playa prominent role, Specifically, (a) very few students used the retests as make-up tests (only 6% of students missed regular tests), (b) Students generally reported that their preparation for regular tests was not lessened by having the retest option as a safety-value (as noted in question 1 in Table 2), (c) And the improvement rates from tests to retests argued against the possibility of a pervasive trend of taking retests without further study, The test-retest policy, then, did not appear to provide an incentive for procrastination nor laziness, By including the "risk" factor into the policy (in this case, 25%), several undesirable problems were largely averted,