Re: [Phys-l] Reading PER literature

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

But grades are not a necessarily a good indicator of how well the school is
educating the students.  It may be an indicator of grade inflation or
deflation.

There is some very revealing data from Shayer & Adey.  They looked at the
intake scores for students at the beginning of what would be middle school
and then looked at the output scores on the English national exam at what
would be the end of HS.  When you plot output vs input you find that all
schools fell on the same line.  So essentially all schools tested were doing
the same thing and the only reason for good output was good input GIGO.

But when Thinking Science was implemented the output scores for the
experimental group moved to be significantly above the line.  In many cases
schools below average moved up to above average, and sometimes superior.  So
it is possible to do a better job.

I have not seem similar data comparisons for American schools, but I suspect
that they will be somewhat similar in that GIGO will be the rule.  In other
words the superior schools have students with high SES.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX

> Not quite -- transfers give a good clue as to the quality of schools.  I
> learned this when I was discussing someone from shall remain nameless.
> The office mgr. said students from that school always received lower
> grades at "our campus".
>
> bc
>
> John Clement wrote:
>
> > 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.
> > > _______________________________________________
> >
> >
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