Re: grade inflation, etc.

[Jack Uretsky <jlu@HEP.ANL.GOV>]

See below-

Adam was by constitution and proclivity a scientist; I was the same, and
we loved to call ourselves by that great name...Our first memorable
scientific discovery was the law that water and like fluids run downhill,
not up.
                          Mark Twain, <Extract from Eve's Autobiography>

On Wed, 5 Jan 2000, Digby Willard wrote:

> Obviously I need to recheck what I remember of Darwin.  Meantime, would you
> provide other examples of my hyperbole?
        One counter-example is worth 1 trillion examples (and then some)

> >   What you tell me about your "top physicists" leads me to suspect that
> > they can't express themselves in writing.  Physics is a form of
> > communication, and the ability to express one's self in writing is an
> > vital part of being a "top physicist".
>
> Some of them can't; some write very well; most I don't really know about,
> because they didn't turn in enough written work for me to find out.
>
> Can you justify your statement that "physics is a form of communication?"
> Certainly most of us find that it involves communication, but that's a long
> way from being a form of communication.

        Physics is how we communicate our experience of nature.
> >  The grades that you give your students should ultimately represent
> > you warranty as to their ability to "perform physics".  If this is
> > not the case, then it is unlikely that I would want to hire any of
> > your graduates to work in a physics/engineering environment, or
> > recommend them for admission to my alma mater.  That's because there
> > are many students whose high grades are meaningful predictors of
> > their future performance.
>
> If I must assign grades (and I must), I agree that ability to perform
> physics should be the prime criterion.  This should be the basis of the
> grades.  Can you define "ability to perform physics" in a measurable way
> that can reliably translate into a grade?
        Wrong question.  Can I reliably assign a grade that predicts
        a student's future performance in an engineering environment
        or in an advanced academic setting?  Yes.  People have been
        doing it for generations.

> Suppose I have two students who work together in a lab.  One student
> understands the purpose of the lab better, figures out what equipment to
> use and how to set up the lab in order to give good results, analyzes the
> first set of data, and on the basis of the results proposes a second
> experiment to investigate a trend in the data.  The other student
> contributes to the lab, but clearly doesn't have the understanding of the
> physics that the first student does.  The first student doesn't turn in a
> lab report; the second one does.  Which one has better ability to "perform
> physics?"
        Since I have no idea of what your labs are, or how you determine
        how well a student "understands the purpose of the lab", the
        question is unanswerable.  I do know that AP exam grades are
        effective identifiers of outstanding students, which is why
        I try to validate my own judgment by giving old AP exams as
        finals.

>