Arnold S. Linsky

Student Evaluations, Research Productivity, and Eminence of College Faculty *

The relationship of a professors involvement in research to his classroom performance has been vigorously disputed for some time, but discussions of this problem have been largely polemical. This study determines empirically the relationship of these two dimensions of academic competence for a national sample of 16 colleges and universities. Two measures of the research role are used: (1) publication score, based upon a weighted summary of articles and books written over a 20 year period, and(b)a citation score (eminence), based upon the number of times a scholars work was cited by others over a ten-year period. Since research activity does not seem to be closely related to classroom performance, several other factors which might influence classroom performance were also considered: there is a very small positive correlation (.08, N = 4646) between teaching rating and course level with more advanced courses receiving more favorable ratings. Enrollment or class size is curvilinearly related to teaching r...

Social stress in the United States : links to regional patterns in crime and illness

In this pioneering study, sociologists develop a State Stress Index that provides a quantitative measure of stress for each state and region in the United States.

Student Evaluations of Teaching: A Comparison of Sociology with Other Disciplines.

H ow are sociologists rated as teachers compared to those in other disciplines? How are their courses ated by their students in comparison with courses in art, history, psychology, or chemistry? To what extent are the ratings of teachers related to the interest inherent in the subject? These are a few of the questions we attempted to answer in this study of student evaluations of sociology professors and others. The issue of the quality of classroom teaching of sociology has become increasingly salient in the last few years. How good a job we are doing in teaching sociology seems to be beset by paradoxically opposite developments. One the one hand, we have criticism from many students about the seeming irrelevance of what we are teaching, our preoccupation with theory

Change in the stressfulness of life in American states and regions from 1976 to 1982

The State Stress Index (SSI) described in this paperI measures difference between the states of the United States, and differences over time, in the occurrence of stressful “life events.” The method of constructing the SSI is described and the scores for each of the American states in 1976 and 1982 are presented. There are large differences between the states in the stressfulness of life. The construct validity of the SSI was supported by analysis which show that the higher the SSI, the higher the incidence of behaviors that have long been assumed to be affected by stress, such as violence and heavy smoking and drinking, and suicide. Scores on the SSI revealed an increase in the stressfulness of life between 1976 and 1982, largely due to the economic recession in 1982. Despite this the 1982 rank order of the states was essentially the same as their relative position in 1976. The West remained the most stressful region of the United States, despite its other attractions, and the North Central and North East remained the least stressful regions, despite their “rustbelt” and “frostbelt” images.

Community Structure and Depressive Disorders

Both sociological and psychiatric theory suggest that the incidence of depressive disorders should be higher in communities where opportunities for occupational success are inadequate relative to aspirations. Such community structures would block many residents from reaching their occupational goals. Presumably, this structurally induced achievement failure is experienced as personal failure, leading to depression for some. Ecological correlations for 27 communities indicate that low opportunity-high aspiration communities have higher rates of hospitalized depression as expected. All educational groups have higher rates of depression in communities where achievement is blocked, but the impact of community structure is greatest on the better educated. The distribution of depressives is better explained by the ratio of opportunities to independently measured aspirations than it is by the opportunity level alone.