<p>Rollins,</p>
<p>You attempt to point out a flaw in jazzymom’s argument saying that while she might balk at the “survey method” used by Forbes for the ranking, she probably wouldn’t do so at the “survey method” used by sociology professors at WashU. First, rollins, ALL sociologists will use survey methods, not just those at WashU; how else do you think sociologists conduct research. But more importantly, you disregard the fact that the surveys used by sociologists will most likely be of a different quality than that used by Forbes, from ratemyprofessors.com. I have experience in working with epidemiologists and sociologists on writing survey questions, and they have specific ways to ensure their surveys are consistent, unbiased, and become representative of certain populations. If a sociology paper is suspected to be too subjective due to its methodology, it would probably have trouble being published. Ratemyprofessors.com, however, cannot be said to necessarily represent a school. It only gives a narrow scope into a school–the professors–and it may not even be accurate in its portrayal of the professors (ie students who post “great professor” just because of the good grade, “poor professor” just because of a bad grade", ■■■■■■■■ people; anything may happen on the Internet, etc) There is no controlling who logs on and posts and the potentially unfair biases certain students have towards certain professors. And different schools might have different numbers of students who hear or know about ratemyprofessors.com; how would you account for unfair sample sizes?</p>