ENME Webcast Archives

LEADERS IN MECHANICAL ENGINEERING LECTURE SERIES - SPRING 2008

Teaching Performance and Its Relationship to Research Performance

Lecturer: Way Ku - Dean of Engineering at the University of Tennessee

Original Air Date: Friday, April 11th at 10:00am

Abstract: Over the years, academics, students and the general public have questioned the measurement of faculty teaching performance and whether a professor's involvement in research has any effect on his or her ability to teach. Professors not involved in research are inclined to dismiss the value that performing research has on teaching. This issue raises many related questions, such as: How is teaching performance related to class size? Are teaching evaluations conducted by students good indicators of teaching performance? Are research-oriented faculty members better, or worse classroom teachers? Are teaching evaluations closely related to the grades given by the instructors? Is it preferable to have senior faculty, as opposed to junior faculty, as the primary instructors for classroom teaching? The answers to the above questions, however, often depend on the individual professor's point of view. In the 1980s, whether or not an increased emphasis on research might impede teaching progress was a frequent topic of conversation. These days, such debates are rare among faculty at top-ranked universities because conventional wisdom has shown that active research complements teaching activities. Since no rigorous study aimed at answering these questions has been performed, we decided to conduct our own analysis.