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The Ethics of Evaluating Instructional Computing
Marvin J. Croy
- Introduction
- 1. Moor’s Analysis
- 2. Overall’s Analysis
- 3. Considerations of these Analyses
- 3.1 Equal Educational Opportunity
- 3.2 Optimum Instruction
- 3.3 Informed Consent and Student Obligation
- 4. Minimizing the Risks to Students
- 5. Summation
- End Notes
- References
Overall’s analysis produces a much less favorable view of this type of in-class educational research. Much of her position is summed up in the following passage.
Students are entitled to expect that the available resources and unavoidable liabilities will be distributed similarly within the two sections of what purports to be the same course. They should not be expected and required, as members of a “control group,” to sacrifice access to educational technologies for the sake of possible gains in knowledge about the technologies’ effectiveness – knowledge which will benefit not them but only some hypothetical future students. Students ought not to be harmed by the accident of being enrolled in one section rather than another; they should not be deprived, without their knowledge or consent, of a better learning environment enjoyed by their peers in the other section.(8)
It is clear that, contra Moor, Overall takes very seriously the possibility of students being harmed by the experiment. This point underscores the need for informed consent since “without adequate advance information, students are denied any real choices about this course, and thus have been unjustly treated.”9 Overall also proposes that the non-CAI students be given both access to the instructional programs and remedial instruction if necessary.
While Moor believes that an instructor is ethically bound only to provide adequate instruction, Overall requires more than this. “In offering a university course, the instructor undertakes to provide an optimum learning environment for her students.”(10) This point is related to the issue of whether an instructor is obligated to treat groups within the same course equally and to student claims concerning their rights to equal instruction for equal pay.
Distasteful as it may seem to some, students are the consumers of their education: they want value for their time and money, and they do not want to be deprived of products or services that other students may be receiving for exactly the same fees. Nor should this approach to education necessarily be seen as immature, inappropriate, materialistic, or immoral. If we assume that, as instructors, we have a responsibility to provide our students with the best instruction we possibly can, then the students should not be condemned for expecting to receive that instruction.(11)
In light of this responsibility, Overall recommends that controlled, experimental evaluation of CAI be altogether avoided. Rather, she proposes that the performance of students using CAI in a given course be compared with that of students in previous semesters prior to the introduction of the CAI. This procedure (hereafter “Overall’s resolution”) should allow instructors to carry out their obligations toward students while also developing innovative instructional techniques in a responsible manner.
Go to: 3. Considerations of these Analyses
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