A First Look at the Case for Undergraduate Teaching Assistants

The use of graduate teaching assistants (TAs) in the first-year chemistry programs at large universities is controversial because it is largely an economically, not an instructionally, favorable decision. Just as controversial is the use of undergraduate TAs as a further step to save money. We are in the middle of a long-range study to assess the effectiveness of undergraduate versus graduate TAs in first-year chemistry discussion sections. Five years of student evaluation of teaching data shows that as a group undergraduate TAs are perceived by students as being better TAs than graduate students. In this commentary, we speculate on the reasons for this and discuss the implications of these initial findings.