Average of Averages?

[Doctor]

What is a good average ISR rating?
In other words, is there an average of averages available to compare one school with another?

[mathman85]

8 and above for me.

[PsyGuy]

Your average of averages would suffer greatly from range restriction. ISR isnt a "consumer reports" of IE, its the complaints department for ITs who have nowhere else to go to vent their frustrations. What your essentially asking is whats a "good score" for an IS someone had an axe to grind or a complaint about, in which case my reply would be there isnt one. There are good reports of ISs on ISR, but they are universally submitted by leadership or leadership who "motivated" ITs to leave positive reviews. The reality is that ITs just dont fill out evaluations when the experience has been positive, which brings the axiom that no review of an IS is a good review.

[MartElla]

Psyguy, there's definitely a lot of true reviews on here and not just bad ones. I have posted a number myself and I know of five or six other teachers that have reviewed schools honestly. This was after they left the school. I also wrote a stinging review on a school that was poor. I doubt these are the only people to have written honest reviews as they saw them and that I know them all.

So, while it's true that there must be plenty of fake positive reviews on here, there must also be a lot of true positive reviews. In fact, your stance doesn't really stand up to scrutiny, does it? I'd say that the unproven premise, "The reality is that ITs just dont fill out evaluations when the experience has been positive" doesn't seem to cohere with other experiences of human behaviour on the net. Some people like to leave reviews for others and in turn read reviews. Are all the positive reviews on GoodReads by the publishers? Are readers only motivated to read a review after they've read a tedious book? Do tourists only leave genuine negative reviews on Trip Advisor? Therefore the positive reviews must be by travel agents or by those tourists "motivated by" hoteliers?

Of course, the reviews should all be taken with a pinch of salt. There's plenty of honest reviews on ISR though, whether negative, positive or meh.

[PsyGuy]

@MartElla

We disagree, greatly. Your ana1ysis suffers from too many lots, lost of bad reviews lots of good reviews lots of fake good reviews lots of true good reviews. I dont see it. What I see is a string of bad reviews and then miraculously a string of good reviews for an IS which to me is leadership or their cheerleaders padding the bad reviews with good ones.

Oh I doubt that there is any absolute quantity, Im sure there are some legitimate good reviews among the fake good reviews, but like soci/psycho paths how do you tell them apart based solely on the content and merits of the individual review. Even then the true good reviews are of such a trivial minority, it doesnt change that ISR is still the complaints department and now and then they get a warm fuzzy review.

Yeah it really does adhere to human experiences on the internet, there is WAY, WAY more negativity volatility on the internet than positivity (just do a Google search on anything involving politics), how long will it be before an article about "The Internet is Really Upset" over some mom who lets her kid pick his nose, its not the internet its 5 millennial snowflakes at H.Po.

Are all the positive reviews on Good Reads by the publisher, add by the publishers cheerleaders or paid marketing consultants and make all a little less absolute and yes.

Have you read Trip Advisor? This is the good reviews "Great property" whereas the bad ones read like a novel of ills. Its the same with Yelp or Amazon, etc. I'll put far more credibility in a poor review than I will with a dozen generic good review blips.
You are aware that there are companies whose sole product is providing positive reviews on social media?

No, we disagree, there really arent plenty of honest positive reviews on ISR.

[MartElla]

Well, that's one opinion.

We can agree to disagree. I think there are more genuine reviews than you do but I have no more than anecdotal evidence and you have "What I see".

I have to say that so many schools are doing a bad job of promoting their schools if ISR reviews are a valuable marketing tool. They should be posting many more positive reviews.

[PsyGuy]

@MartElla

Well you are entitled to your opinion as well, and I have no more or better anecdotal evidence than you do. I find your comparison of other evaluation and reviews on other sites as you classify as other human behavior on the internet, to not really be relevant, what does the observations of other sites have to do with observations of ISR, youre making an assumption that ISR and other review and evaluation sites have the same behavior, and I see no data to support that extrapolation.

I think its ego, they just dont want to bend the knee and participate in a venue that proposes to past judgement on their IS. What would they do, cite a 5 star rating on ISR, and then what happens when there is a negative review. If an IS is going to incorporate ISR into their marketing how do they manage the negative which they have no control over.

[shadowjack]

I would argue there is more truth than lies in the majority of reviews. But I would also argue that you have to use a filter and your international experience to filter out the reality from the perspective of a teacher who is personally involved and maybe too close to be super-objective.

That said, I take things with a grain of salt, but recognize some truths - and in some, more truth than in others.

[mysharona]

Once again the original question gets sidetracked, the OP didn't ask whether the reports were true or false they simply asked for advice on what a good average score might be on ISR.

[MartElla]

There would have to be enough reviews on the school to make sure that a single overly positive/negative review did not skew things too much.

So, at least five reviews with an average of 7 = worth a look. At least that number and an 8 or above = the ISR equivalent of "Certified Fresh with a pinch of salt". Salt is very popular on ISR, of course.

Those are arbitrary requirements, of course, but then it's an arbitrary question.

[PsyGuy]

Sure arbitrary being arbitrary an average of 8 with a minimum of 5 reviews (statistics on cell sizes less than 5 are generally lack validity) is "ISR Certified Fresh with Salt", and yes, salt is very popular on ISR. Which means nothing because arbitrary is arbitrary.

[Heliotrope]

I agree that there are plenty of honest positive reviews, as well of plenty fake ones (a lot of which you can spot quite easily). Same for negative reviews.

I don't look at the average, but am more interested in the schools score on certain subjects.

I'm less interested in:
Attitude of local community towards foreigners
Satisfaction with housing
Community offers a variety of activities
Availability and quality of local health care
Family friendly / child friendly school and community
Security / personal safety

And more interested in all the others, having to do with the school and savings potential.
So if a school has a six as an average, but scores eights where it matters for me, then that school is an eight to me.
Overall I would say a 7 is good enough, an 8 makes a school desirable, but I always try to get more information about a school from other sources (ex-colleagues of colleagues who work there for example).

[MartElla]

PsyGuy wrote:
> Sure arbitrary being arbitrary an average of 8 with a minimum of 5 reviews
> (statistics on cell sizes less than 5 are generally lack validity) is
> "ISR Certified Fresh with Salt", and yes, salt is very popular on
> ISR. Which means nothing because arbitrary is arbitrary.

I'm glad that we can agree on that without recourse to an arbitrator.