I’ve argued that the main social function of academia is to let students, patrons, readers, etc. affiliate with credentialed-as-impressive minds.
What does this theory predict relative to theory that people are interested in quality teaching and research, and they use reputation as a not terribly reliable proxy for it, as quality is too hard to measure for most people?
What does this theory predict relative to theory that people are interested in quality teaching and research, and they use reputation as a not terribly reliable proxy for it, as quality is too hard to measure for most people?
People in the US do not use prestige as a proxy for teaching, or at least that is quite inconsistent with their other claims. Everyone agrees that large research schools are bad at teaching and that at least some small schools are better. But very few people turn down Harvard to go to Williams, so they seem to admit to having other priorities than teaching.
There is more to learning than teaching, namely the classmates. It may be a coordination issue: the good students want to be together, but it doesn’t matter much where, so there are multiple equilibria: in France the undergrads want to go to different schools than the grad students. (Robin’s theory seems to predict that this shouldn’t happen, but not terribly strongly.) ETA: also, in the US, liberal arts schools and state research universities largely flip prestige between the (undergrad) students and the faculty.
(Yes, it makes sense that journalists and grad students should look to prestige as a proxy for research.)
Everyone agrees that large research schools are bad at teaching and that at least some small schools are better.
“Everyone agrees” huh? Do you have any evidence for that? As far as I can tell correlation between prestige, research quality, and teaching quality is highly positive in Polish universities’ computer science (that’s the only kind I know closely, for everything else I would just guess their quality from their prestige).
I would say there is a general positive correlation between teaching quality, research quality, and prestige, with some exceptions for smaller schools that specifically focus on quality undergraduate education (like Princeton). But don’t be fooled by a college saying that its classes are better because its smaller- you actually need to attend both classes and compare. People can be very proud that their school has ‘great’ lectures in what I would consider high school level biology, simply because their professor is ‘fun.’
But don’t be fooled by a college saying that its classes are better because its smaller … People can be very proud that their school has ‘great’ lectures in what I would consider high school level biology, simply because their professor is ‘fun.’
It seems to me that you are mainly objecting to people caring about teaching quality than disagreeing with their assessment. Maybe people are fools to care about class size and student evaluations, but they appear to care, unless I’m confusing consoling lies with actual advice.
Yes curriculum matters, but that is much more predicted by student quality than professor quality: two kinds of prestige diverge.
See the rest of the quote. Also from Robin’s post:
Relative to the Bayesians that academic economic theorists typically assume populate the world, real academics over-react or under-react to evidence, as needed to show respect for impressive academic displays. This helps assure the customers of academia that by affiliating with the most respected academics, they are affiliating with very impressive minds.
These look more like classical statistics vs Bayesian statistics than anything status-related.
I haven’t seen any science run in Bayesian way, academic, commercial, or whatnot, and I have no idea how it would really look like, in spite of its theoretical appeal.
What does this theory predict relative to theory that people are interested in quality teaching and research, and they use reputation as a not terribly reliable proxy for it, as quality is too hard to measure for most people?
People in the US do not use prestige as a proxy for teaching, or at least that is quite inconsistent with their other claims. Everyone agrees that large research schools are bad at teaching and that at least some small schools are better. But very few people turn down Harvard to go to Williams, so they seem to admit to having other priorities than teaching.
There is more to learning than teaching, namely the classmates. It may be a coordination issue: the good students want to be together, but it doesn’t matter much where, so there are multiple equilibria: in France the undergrads want to go to different schools than the grad students. (Robin’s theory seems to predict that this shouldn’t happen, but not terribly strongly.) ETA: also, in the US, liberal arts schools and state research universities largely flip prestige between the (undergrad) students and the faculty.
(Yes, it makes sense that journalists and grad students should look to prestige as a proxy for research.)
“Everyone agrees” huh? Do you have any evidence for that? As far as I can tell correlation between prestige, research quality, and teaching quality is highly positive in Polish universities’ computer science (that’s the only kind I know closely, for everything else I would just guess their quality from their prestige).
I would say there is a general positive correlation between teaching quality, research quality, and prestige, with some exceptions for smaller schools that specifically focus on quality undergraduate education (like Princeton). But don’t be fooled by a college saying that its classes are better because its smaller- you actually need to attend both classes and compare. People can be very proud that their school has ‘great’ lectures in what I would consider high school level biology, simply because their professor is ‘fun.’
It seems to me that you are mainly objecting to people caring about teaching quality than disagreeing with their assessment. Maybe people are fools to care about class size and student evaluations, but they appear to care, unless I’m confusing consoling lies with actual advice.
Yes curriculum matters, but that is much more predicted by student quality than professor quality: two kinds of prestige diverge.
See the rest of the quote. Also from Robin’s post:
These look more like classical statistics vs Bayesian statistics than anything status-related.
I haven’t seen any science run in Bayesian way, academic, commercial, or whatnot, and I have no idea how it would really look like, in spite of its theoretical appeal.