Re: ...yeah, its better to get the students "prepped" for a test they

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

        I have been meaning to comment briefly on Hestene's remarks, as
forwarded by Jane Jackson.  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, 1 Mar 2000, Jane Jackson wrote:
> For more detail and the context, here is the beginning of David Hestenes'
> article:
>
>         *******************************
> David Griffiths has used the occasion of his well-deserved Millikan award
> to raise serious questions about the reform movement in physics education
> and the 'Hestenes test' in particular. Since my name has been taken in
> vain, so to speak, I feel compelled to respond.
>         Along with F. K. Richtmeyer in his inaugural article for the AJP, I
> concur with Griffiths' dour assessment of the amateurish  state of physics
> teaching generally. However, I do not believe that substantial improvements
> can be achieved without a strong program of physics education research
> (PER). The problems are too difficult and complex to yield to amateurish
> efforts. Nearly two decades ago I penned a diatribe on the need for a
> ?Science of Teaching. I have since seen PER emerge as a credible discipline
> in its own right, with a growing body of reliable empirical evidence,
> clarification of research issues, and, most important of all, an emerging
> core of able and committed researchers within physics departments across
> the country. Most of our colleagues have been oblivious to this movement,
> if not contemptuous of it. Some are beginning to realize that it is more
> than another 'educational fad. It is a serious program to apply to our
> teaching the same scientific standards that we apply to physics research.
>
> What does the FCI tell us?
>         I will focus on  Griffiths' concerns about the Force Concept
> Inventory (FCI) and its implications, but I wish to place it in the larger
> context of PER. By the way, the FCI should not be called the 'Hestenes
____________________________________snip________________________________

        There is a sense in which PER is an oxymoron - the sense that it
is possible to generalize about education.  Yes, of course, there are
some obvious generalizations; most subjects should not be taught by
someone who knows nothing at all about the subject (or does not have
peer-reviewed teaching aids).  Beyond the obvious generalizations, the
starting difficulty is to define, <and agree upon> goals for ER.  The
broad goal of education is to provide a literate (in some very broad
sense) society.  This is a long-term goal.  By implication, research
in the context of such a goal implies a need for long-term (longitudinal)
studies.  The only such studies of which I am aware are the Terman "genius
studies" (validating "IQ testing" as predictive of future career
"success").
        What we are left with, to the best of my understandin, is
measurements of correlations between teachers and performance on tests
like the FCI.  This seems like data-taking just for the sake of
data-taking, and the long-term implications are left unknown.