Re: Statistics / more compare & contrast

[John Clement <clement@HAL-PC.ORG>]

The thing I find most interesting about IQ is that the raw scores have been
rising on certain tests.  As a result a person who scored above average
years ago may score average or low now.  This was attributed to the fact
that certain tests have been literally printed on cereal boxes as children's
puzzles.  Does that make us all more intelligent, or at my age does this
mean that I am less intelligent?

The statistic about no text being the best text actually confirms my opinion
that the standard texts are actually often detrimental.  I believe that
there was also evidence for greater success when the text is not finished.
Since 99% of this is based on standard glossy texts it says very little
about the newer research based texts.  I would like to actually see a study
which can compare students from the reformed HS courses with traditional
students in a college course.  BTW Modeling does not use a text.  I would
also be curious if courses which still use some of the older reformed texts
are also more successful such as PSSC.

> > It is not  PC to mention it,  but an important predictor of
> > academic test results is that old faithful, the IQ measure.
> > This measure is designed to be normally distributed.
> >       A high school may expect to see student results in
> general that are
> > reasonably normal, even if test results are not 'marked on a curve'
> > [i.e. transformed to a normal distribution] for this reason alone.
>
> Brian:
>
> Check out Gould's book "The Mismeasure of Man"  IQ is a very
> cooked statistic
> (as you say, "designed" for statistical reliability), but after reading
> Gould's book I rather believe it measures very little about actual
> intelligence (whatever that means).  If you really want an indicator for
> predicting student success, try SES.  If you are looking to
> predict success
> in college physics, look for whether the HS physics teacher used no text.
> (after Sadler's recent _science education_ article)
> Dan M
>
> Dan MacIsaac, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy,
> Northern AZ Univ
> danmac@nau.edu          http://purcell.phy.nau.edu         PHYS-L
> list owner