Re: devil's advocate (? one wonders...)

["Richard W. Tarara" <rtarara@saintmarys.edu>]

What I REALLY question is the _extent_ of the failure with the 95%
.....especially in light of the _apparent_ success (measured in practical
terms--the state of science and technology today) of the other 5%.

I also fully admit that any measure of 'improved critical thinking skills',
etc. due to physics instruction are at best subjective--but then I see the
"Hake plot" to be highly subjective as well--especially since it uses (IMO)
questionable criteria for classification of courses as traditional and
interactive and cannot adequately account for many other factors (such as
teacher enthusiasm, focus on the particular topics assessed by the FCI, the
effect of testing and quizzing prior to taking the FCI, etc., etc.).  I
realize that the PER folks want OBJECTIVE measures to prove their points,
but (as with any human subject experimentation) there are just too many
variables to be all that certain.  Anecdotes are just that,
anecdotes...whose interpretation depends a lot more on the interpreter than
on the content.  This may be the best we can do, but the results and
conclusions from such studies are necessarily different in objectivity than
from what we classify as physical science. 

Rick

----------
> Finally, for now, I'm wondering where the fact that I am pointing to the
> failure with the 95% says automatically that I am _also_ referring or
> specifically saying failure with the 5%.  (I have suggested that the 5%
> might be better for a different kind of initial instruction, but have I
> specifically said that the 5% are failed too?  I don't think so.)
>
> So it's okay then to ignore our effect on the 95%?