How Facial Analysis Software Could Help Struggling Students

moon_unit2 writes "Tech Review has a story on research showing that facial recognition software can accurately spot signs that programming students are struggling. NC State researchers tracked students learning java and used an open source facial-expression recognition engine to identify emotions such as frustration or confusion. The technique could be especially useful for Massive Open Online Courses — where many thousands of students are working remotely — but it could also help teachers identify students who need help in an ordinary classroom, experts say. That is, as long as those students don't object to being watched constantly by a camera."

Re:What they need is FINANCIAL analysis

[celticryan]

While there certainly are some humanities students who get support - most of them do not receive full support from their institution. Typically, half time TA with no tuition coverage. This can also be the case for engineering PhDs at some institutions. Almost all science PhD students are typically guaranteed 2 years TA plus tuition even at the very smallest schools. In addition, non-STEM related PhDs take longer (about 1.5 years longer at the median). This leads to more student loan debt for non-STEM PhDs compared to STEM PhDs. Please see this study for a very nice comparison: The Price of a Science PhD [air.org]

In addition, you make what I believe to be two assumptions by implication about Universities:
1. That professors are hired to teach.
2. That TAs will do a worse job teaching than professors.

Professors are NOT hired to teach - the exception is small private colleges without graduate programs. Professors are hired to bring research money into the University. The University takes in the region of 40-60% off the top of grants "for institutional research support." While this is not always the case (for some grants, the granting institution require the university to commit matching funds) it is more than the norm. Secondly, while professors are typically more knowledgeable in the subject and typically have more experience teaching (by virtue of spending the time as a TA during graduate school), that does not mean they are the better teachers. The best teachers I ever had were evenly split between professors and TAs. While not scientific, my colleagues experiences were similar.