ABSTRACT
The current situation in higher education gives new meaning to the phrase 'the treason of the intellectuals'. This chapter examines a handful of the most important large-scale cases of rational choice theory failures, and their consequences, within and outside the academy, and makes some suggestions for improving the situation. 'Educational psychology', in this view, is a dummy's version of psychology; 'educational measurement' the same. Defenders of this view often seek to justify it by pointing at, for example, the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores of students entering educational psychology, which allegedly peak at about the minimal requirement for acceptance into the mainstream psychology department. Well-run universities today would require not only staff knowledge about good testing, instruction, and evaluation practices, but also knowledge of the skills for applying this knowledge. Of course, any competent college would have regular in-service faculty workshops covering new as well as classic research on MAE (measurement, assessment, and evaluation), with a small handbook.
