Re: Effective HS Physics (was Statistics / more ...)

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

Actually I did not mean desire.  I was referring to the attitude factors
that are measured by either the MPEX
http://www.physics.umd.edu/rgroups/ripe/perg/expects/ or VASS.  Even when
the student has a desire to do well, that is not enough.  They have to have
the correct attitude in terms of understanding how to connect the
information.  This relates to the fact that Ron Thornton found that the type
of question that students ask is important, not just the number of
questions.  In addition he found that high gainers often came up with wrong
answers, but later corrected the answers.  Students who who asked factual
rather than conceptual questions were generally low gainers.  Certainly
desire is another attitude that may be needed, but it is not sufficient.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX

> -----Original Message-----
> From: phys-l@lists.nau.edu: Forum for Physics Educators
> [mailto:PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu]On Behalf Of Bernard Cleyet
> Sent: Sunday, January 06, 2002 9:51 PM
> To: PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu
> Subject: Re: Effective HS Physics (was Statistics / more ...)
>
>
> I think John has touched on the missing factor, desire or enthusiasm
> (attitude).  I think the tests would generally predict success
> when coupled
> with a means of measuring "ganas."
>
> (http://usuarios.iponet.es/casinada/06ganas.htm)
>
> My experience is a good example of the failure of the Thurstone
> Aptitude test:
>
> Q 28,  L 98,  All first students required to take (along with
> Subject A in 1955
> UCSB).  The dept. expected me to fail the first midterm and quit
> Physics --
> didn't and managed to get the top grade on the final.
>
> bc
>
>
>
>
> John Clement wrote:
>
> > According to my references the Binet-Simon 1905 was credited as
> being the
> > first "modern" test designed to predict performance.  1916
> Stanford-Binet,
>
> cut
>
> > David Meltzer has shown that some math tests have some
> predictive value, but
> > again individual student effort and attitudes can have a big
> effect.  VASS
> > is measuring attitude, while the Lawson test is measuring
> thinking skills.
> > My data seems to show that the Lawson test puts a very strong limit on
> > achieving gain on some of the conceptual tests.  While a good
> attitude can
> > push the student to achieve the limit, it seems that they can
> not achieve
> > more within the parameters of my course.
> >
> > John M. Clement
> > Houston, TX
> >
> > >
>
> cut