Re: [Phys-l] Reading PER literature

["John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>]

 One interpretation is that there is a problem with education in their
countries.  It could be that the prestigious schools there are full, or the
social climate here is alluring.

As to superiority of American schools, this is often a self fulfilling
prophesy.  When a school is considered superior people send their budding
geniuses there and viola, it has better test scores and superior graduates.
My kids school is precisely one of those.  Schools ratings are actually
completely independent of the education.  They don't do good pre and
posttesting to see if the graduates have "learned" more.  It is the old
computer adage GIGO "garbage in garbage out" or in this case genius in,
genious out.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX
> | > Keep talking about how more and more physics & science grad students
> | are
> | > from other countries.
> | > Fine.  Do something about it.  Teach differently.
> |
> | Hmmm.  But many of them study here, so what does THAT say?
> | --- That says that our schools are good.  It doesn't say that there is
> | no room for improvement in teaching methods.
> |
>
> There are, of course, other interpretations of that data that are likely
> to be of equal value.
> _______________________________________________