Posted on 09/25/2024 3:57:11 AM PDT by karpov
Average course grades tend to be lower in some college subjects than others. Engineering and the “hard” sciences, for example, retain reputations for being “harder” subjects than the humanities and social sciences, even though a naïve observer could just as well assume that students in the latter subjects are smarter.
Do score-average comparisons really matter, though, in practical terms? After college, most graduates will be compared to one another from within their chosen fields. A “C+” engineering graduate will still be chosen ahead of a “C-” engineering graduate, just as an “A+” history grad will be chosen ahead of an “A-” history grad.
Score scales rank individuals’ performances so that they may be compared to one another. There are no “true” test scores; all are relative and at least somewhat subjective. So long as test content and test-taking populations remain similar, test makers can “equate” scores across time, producing the trend lines so popular with journalists and politicians.
Occasionally, however, changes in either the test content or the test-taking population stretch or compress score distributions so much that the scales themselves must be adjusted to remain usefully discriminating. Older readers may remember when the SAT score scales were “re-centered” in 1995-96. College Board, the SAT’s maker, explained that the scales needed to be adjusted because the test-taking population had changed so dramatically—in sheer number and demographic make-up—since the 1940s, when test-takers were predominantly middle- and upper-class white males applying to elite colleges.
A less publicized goal of the recentering synchronized the verbal and math score distributions. Over time, the SAT’s math and verbal scales had developed quite different shapes, and College Board worried that that lack of symmetry threatened the SAT’s face validity among its vast non-technical customer base.
(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...
The basic concept seems to be that test takers today do not do nearly as well as test takers from a few decades ago.
Should we ask questions about our education system and why it churns out low achievers?
Should we ask questions about today’s parenting and why kids don’t seem studious and disciplined?
Should we ask questions about demographics and the bell curve?
Or should we “re-center” the tests to hide the fact that our nation is in decline?
“ Engineering and the “hard” sciences, for example, retain reputations for being “harder” subjects than the humanities and social sciences, even though a naïve observer could just as well assume that students in the latter subjects are smarter.”
Reputation for being harder and harder is put in scare quotes lol
Was this written by a butt hurt “journalist “ major. I majored in engineering, and it is harder than the “studies”.
Although I would surely have got an F in DEI class by prof 😂
When I was younger, it was not uncommon for marginal public schools in my area to have higher SAT scores than top private schools. That’s because only a small group of college-bound students at the public schools even took the SAT, while everybody at the private schools did.
Was this written by a butt hurt “journalist “ major. I majored in engineering, and it is harder than the “studies”.
~~~
Indeed.
Send 100 engineering students to liberal arts/humanities programs, and send 100 liberal arts students to engineering programs, and see what happens.
I bet the success disparity would be stark
I spoke to Princeton’s director of admissions many years ago, and she said that they relied more on the AP in assessing applicants than they did the SAT. This was because after the renorming of the SAT in 95, all their good applicants had nearly identical scores right at the top of the distribution.
Whereas before the renorming they could see a strong score as a 700 and a very strong score as a 750, now both those candidates will have a 790 and you cannot tell the difference by that measure.
On the AP though, there was still a noticeable difference between a candidate who got a bunch of 4’s and one who got a bunch of 5’s.
If the college board goes the same way with AP changes that they did with SAT, the effect will be the same. The median may be constant, but the tails will be much fatter. ALL the good students will get 5’s and colleges with highly selective admissions will again be unable to tell the good from the great students by any objective standard. They will then be left to admit students based on race quotas or whatever non-academic standard they choose.
I’d bet that the engineering students wouldn’t fare as well as you seem to think. Most engineers don’t tolerate farcical thinking well, and the liberal arts courses are all dependent on farcical and magical thinking.
Four rhetorical questions.
That, of course, is the point.
Unfortunately, no.
I teach the victims after they are churned out of the mostly public schools.
“Should we ask questions about our education system and why it churns out low achievers?
“Should we ask questions about today’s parenting and why kids don’t seem studious and disciplined?
“Should we ask questions about demographics and the bell curve?
“Or should we “re-center” the tests to hide the fact that our nation is in decline?”
Excellent questions. I would want answers on those from someone with “skin in the game” (like an astronaut stuck in space due to faulty equipment) rather than from a social scientist at an Ivy League University who wants to monkey with the results for political reasons.
My recently graduated from college son, was talking about him and his buddies who generally were on the CPA track, would have to study for advanced math and statistics classes, while their elementary education major girlfriends had projects to do that involved coloring.
When I was courting my future wife, who is considerably younger than I am, our SAT scores came up. Her verbal was considerably higher than mine, which was not awful.
She sweetly mentioned the recalibration to me, to spare my feelings.
When compared to contemporaries in other countries, the decline in American education is obvious and too large to hide. Public education on average functions at a third world level. Highly effective school systems do exist, but they are outnumbered badly by systems, mostly urban, that teach little or nothing. I believe the teachers unions are largely responsible.
I found that to be true. I took a first level philosophy course and just could not wrap my mind around, nor accept the BS that was coming out of the professor. I dropped his class after two sittings - total waste of time.
This was 40 + years ago at GIT. It’s a whole lot worse now.
Of course, all of your questions, perfectly decent, don’t have jack squat to do with AP testing. After spending a full year 180 hours in an AP class, a high school student is going to know a ton of a lot more than a college student who has spent just 90 hours. And getting a “3” on an AP test is a lot harder than getting a “C” on a college test.
The article told how they want to “re-norm” the tests so they all produce the same shaped curve of results. Your astute comment shows that this MUST be agenda-driven. The article mentioned no consideration of how the quality of test-takers would affect the shape of the curve for various tests.
This is similar to a UNDP staff assessment. I had to assess my staff according to Poor, Below/Meets/Exceeds Expectations, and Outstanding, with defined percentages for each level, even though there were various positions. I argued that if staff are properly recruited and trained EVERYONE could be Outstanding.
“… just as an “A+” history grad will be chosen ahead of an “A-” history grad.”
Why would someone need to be choosing a history grad for ANY job?
EC
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