Writing Feedback / GRE-AW-Argument-Secondary infections and muscle strain [4]

TOPIC: ARGUMENT51 - The following appeared in a medical newsletter.

"Doctors have long suspected that secondary infections may keep some patients from healing quickly after severe muscle strain. This hypothesis has now been proved by preliminary results of a study of two groups of patients. The first group of patients, all being treated for muscle injuries by Dr. Newland, a doctor who specializes in sports medicine, took antibiotics regularly throughout their treatment. Their recuperation time was, on average, 40 percent quicker than typically expected. Patients in the second group, all being treated by Dr. Alton, a general physician, were given sugar pills, although the patients believed they were taking antibiotics. Their average recuperation time was not significantly reduced. Therefore, all patients who are diagnosed with muscle strain would be well advised to take antibiotics as part of their treatment."

WORDS: 309 TIME: 00:30:00

An experiment has been carried out in order to test the hypothesis that secondary infection delayed the healing of muscle strain. However, there are several obvious fallacies in the newsletter that can't be ignored.

First of all, the author didn't fully present the possible associated disease surrounding muscle strain. In the newsletter, only one possibility has been raised which is secondary infection while there may be other possibilities. To further strenghten the argument, a pillot test/experiment to exclude possibilities other than secondary infection may be very helpful.

Secondly, it is unfair and not convincing to have two different doctors for the test group and the control group respectively. To make the result more suspicious is that the profile of these two doctors are very different as one is established in sports medicine and the other is a nearly unknown general physician. It is quite reasonable for readers to question the experiment as this difference will directly lead to the conclusion that the 40% difference has been caused by the difference of the competence of the two doctors.

Thirdly, granted that these two doctors practice the same theraputic treatment to the patients from these two groups, the statistics of all the patients are unknowned. The patients may vary in the muscle strain, the location of the muscles, the scale of the area of the strain, etc. However, the most important thing is that it is not know if they all have secondary infections and the infections can be treated by antibiotics.

In sum, the short letter can't justify the hypothesis. Further information should be supplied so that the experiement can be considered as convincing: 1) there's no other factors other than the secondary infections, 2) both of the groups received same treatments apart from the differents in the antibiotics and 3) both of the groups share similar profile in muscle strain.

Writing Feedback / GRE-AW-Issue-Faculty, practical experiences, working outside the academic world [2]

TOPIC: ISSUE50 - "In order to improve the quality of instruction at the college and university level, all faculty should be required to spend time working outside the academic world in professions relevant to the courses they teach."

WORDS: 652 TIME: 00:45:00

Only armed with professional experiences can a college faculty member be considered as improved in instruction. To some extent it has been accepted widely as commonsense. In AACSB accreditation, an international renowned business education accreditation, faculty members are all required to have "real world" experiences. This requirement is also adopted by EQUIS accreditation, a counterpart of AACSB accreditation in Europe.

"Real world" experiences, in many ways helps the tertiary education. First of all, most of the graduates from college and university end up chasing a career out of the ivory tower. Faculty members can have first hand perception and unverstanding of the demand from the industry through their participation into the operation of the industry. Bearing the demands of the industry in mind, they will be proactively able to identify the purpose of the course in contribution to the final competency profile of a qualified graduate from the program. The design and arrangement of different contents and key points will, thus, become more clear. The instruction is therefore improved.

Beside a more clearly-structured course, the "real world" experience has other spill-over positive effect. In the past years, my data collection reveals that faculty members with strong related industry backgrounds tend to surpass in teaching evaluation the faculty members with little or no similar experiences. The individual interview to the students shows that faculty members who has spend time working outside the academic world in professions relevant to the courses they teach can bring life into the classroom through real life stories and simulations games. As case study, a pedagogy developed by Harvard Business School in early 1920s that is in a form of group discussion while facilitated by a faculty member, becomes more and more used in classroom, a recent trend shows that those good facilitators and commanders of this method are all with strong background in industry.

More over, it is explicit that faculty members with "real world" experience are also able to diversify their profile of teaching tools. One of our most successful and welcome professor in leadership development course not only deliver lectures but also invite "real world" leaders to come and talk to us, not only guide the students to analyze cases but also force them to dress up and play the King Leer in a collaboration with local theatre. He "accidentally" has abundant indutry connections and experiences. Students in tertiary education are also adults and share very different characteristics in learning in comparison of students in primary and secondary education programs. Psychologists have long proved that adult students need a teaching tool box beyond mere lectures to truely remember and understand. It is the "real world" experiences that most likely offer the raw materials for it.

However, given all the above said, can we draw a conclusion that industrial experience is necessary for good instruction across all disciplines in college and university? No is the answer.

Teaching skills is not cultivated in real world life. In order to improve the instruction quality, workshops and seminars on teaching skills are necessary and can NOT be supplement by experiences in industry. The teaching skills are then further developed through the real teaching experiences, which is very similar to the process of language adoption. It is also important to admit that for certain subjects, i.e. theoretical physics or mathematics, etc, it is impossible to have working experience outside the academic world for these theoretical-oriented subjects, let alone the value added of these experiences is quite doubtful.

Admittedly, real world experience is very important to the quality improvement of instruction in many disciplines. However, it is over-generalized to draw a statement that all faculty members should have real world experiences. However, it is much more prudent and true to say that for practical-oriented subjects, it is very important for faculty members to have working experiences outside the academic world while the necessity would significantly reduce for faculty members from theoretial-oriented disciplines.