November 4, 2005

Dear Professor McFarlane,

Over the past week, students of the MPhil IR course have met in growing
distress about the evaluation of the Applied Statistics course.
Although we recognize the importance of quantitative training in our
study of International Relations, we feel the course assessments are
consuming a disproportionate amount of our time and energy relative to
course's emphasis within the degree program. We believe the following
recommendations will immediately solve this problem:

Test

The test is an inappropriate assessment given the stated course aims.
According to the department graduate handbook, the course seeks to
"develop an understanding of research skills appropriate to the
subject, including quantitative and qualitative methods..." The
comprehensive test, as it has been presented, does not provide a space
for demonstrating how quantitative methods applies to our subject or
future research endeavors. We believe a suitable final assessment for
our course would privilege quantitative methods as subject-specific
research and analysis skills, not as an exercise in computation.

The fact that students in other degree programs will not be subject to
the test confirms that a single formal assessment is not appropriate
for all courses of study.

We suggest that students of our degree program not be required to sit
for the test, beginning this year.

If a formal assessment is necessary, we are confident a more
appropriate format could be developed. Our discussions have proposed
the idea of submitting a critique of an article that employs
quantitative methods equivalent to the course level.

Revision of weekly assignments:

Several concerns have been raised regarding the weekly assignment.
Expectations for the assignment distract from the course's subject
matter. For example, formatting the tables routinely consumes more time
than the actually statistical analysis. We ask that all assessments of
the weekly assignment follow an established rubric, which places less
emphasis on formatting and more analysis.

Additionally, in attempting to merge the lecture material with the
computer analysis seminars, there has been limited instruction on how
to analyze data in descriptive terms. To better understand the
material, we believe a portion of the STATA seminar should be devoted
to a fuller interpretation of data and model answers should be
distributed for reference.

After four weeks of instruction, we believe strongly that these matters
require immediate attention. We are glad to discuss our concerns with
you further and, more importantly, to work with you to remedy to the
above concerns as soon as possible.

Sincerely,

cc:     Dr. Richard Caplan
        Dr. Adam Roberts
Marga Lyall

The only other thing I would mention is how arbitrary the marking seems
to be and how, aside from criticisms about the lack of titles, rarely
includes any feedback.

"Hey everyone, after getting some feedback from a member of the IR
staff we've
revised the 'test' section (see below in bold) to be slightly more of
a 'compromise' offer than a hardline stance:

Test

We the undersigned, understand that it is too late to address the
fundamental
flaws in the structure and teaching of the course, and reluctantly
accept that
we will have to see out the term. However, we strenuously object to
being
subjected to a test in the noughth week of Hilary, which bears no
resemblance
to the stated aims of the course ( I.e to "develop an understanding
of
research skills appropriate to the subject, including quantitative and
qualitative methods...") and which will require an unacceptable amount
of
preparation time with little substantive outcome for our understanding
of
international relations. We therefore request that you withdraw the
requirement that international relations students must sit the test,
and
accept that class assessment is more than adequate in demonstrating our
understanding of the Applied Statistics course."

If a formal assessment is necessary, we are confident a more
appropriate format could be developed.

Can everyone get back on this change. It would just be to delete the
test
section as it stands and insert the above.

Matt"