Posted on 12/19/2002 3:08:50 AM PST by kattracks
(CNSNews.com) - The college seniors of today have no better grasp of general knowledge than the high school graduates of almost half a century ago, according to the results of a new study.
The average of correct responses for modern college seniors on a series of questions assessing "general cultural knowledge" was 53.5 percent compared with 54.5 percent of high school graduates in 1955, according to a survey by Zogby International.
The Zogby poll of 401 randomly selected college seniors was conducted in April for the Princeton, N.J.-based National Association of Scholars and released Wednesday.
"The average amount of knowledge that college seniors had was just about the same as the average amount of knowledge that high school graduates had back in the 1950s," said NAS President Stephen H. Balch.
Balch noted that the high school grads of half a century ago performed better than today's college seniors on history questions, while contemporary students fared better on questions covering art and literature, with no appreciable difference on geography questions.
The questions asked in the April poll by Zogby were virtually the same as questions asked by the Gallup Organization in 1955, with a few questions being slightly modified to reflect history.
"The questions were just about identical, as identical as we could make them," said Balch. "In most cases, they were absolutely identical."
Balch attributed the stagnation of performance on general knowledge questions to several factors, including a decreased emphasis on general knowledge in high school, placing colleges and universities in the position of having to fill academic gaps among students entering college.
"This is fundamental knowledge that everyone should have and if your students are being admitted without it, then that only reinforces the need for you to take general education seriously," Balch said.
But Balch said he didn't consider such actions to be remedial in nature, noting that "the remedial problems have to do with students not being able to write or read at the eighth grade level and still getting into college. There are many institutions in which that's a difficulty. You have people who just don't have the skills let alone the knowledge."
Even though the NAS study raises questions about the caliber of general education offered in high schools, colleges and universities also bear some responsibility, Balch said.
"I think it probably has a lot to do with the dumbing down of curriculum, both at the college and high school level," said Balch. "It looks good, certainly, to say 'more people are graduating from college,' but is there any real intellectual yield from it?"
Also part of the problem is that many colleges are placing less emphasis on liberal arts education in favor of more specialized education geared toward specific career paths, which Balch said isn't necessarily in the best interest of students or society.
"I think these results, which don't seem to show a great deal of value-added in the general cultural knowledge domain - I think these results are quite interesting and disappointing," said Balch. "We would hope that the college students of today would have done a good deal better than the high school students of the past."
Also contributing to the trend is an easing of college admissions standards. While Balch doesn't advocate a return to standards requiring competency in Greek or Latin, he does say colleges should "insist that the student coming have basic areas of knowledge."
A solid background in general knowledge, Balch said, is "very important both for good citizenship and, for many people at least, for a happy and interesting life," by providing students with what Balch called "cultural furniture that allows them to be better citizens."
Click here to read the general knowledge questions.
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In recent years 20% of college freshmen need to take remedial courses in English and arithmetic to bring them up to what used to be barely high school level.
I also had a student that did not know that Switzerland was in Europe, another student that did not know that Spanish was spoken in Spain, and another who thought you could take the train to Europe.
I am not making this up. I also discovered at the time that my son had an abysmal knowledge of geography (he was in high school) because it was never formally taught, and most of his history textbooks had very few maps. I had to do a crash course here at home to make sure he could locate things on a map!
The curriculum is too full of things that are PC and not enough basic knowledge.
I did not write the questions, but you are correct. Since "Handel's 'Messiah,'" might have given away the answer, they should have written the question, "what composer wrote the oratorio, 'Messiah'?"
But then, that may have been unfair, since most college graduates probably do not know what an oratorio is.
Hank
These tests give you a grade equivalent, but also an age equivalent. The age equivalent can be interpreted as, "If an average student of "such and such" an age took this test, he'd score the same as you."
When my 14 year old's score reflected that he had the general knowlege of a 30 year old, I knew they must have slacked off on teaching this sort of thing.
My kid is not a genius, but he has a well-rounded knowlege of history, science, geography, and all these were included in the general knowlege section.
I, personally, don't put all the blame on the schools and curriculum. I think parents have quit talking to their children. And alot of knowlege can be passed on in simple conversation. In everyday conversation, you mention a place, an author, a fact of history, and the child asks about it, then you explain it.
And to those who say knowing how to use computer programs is more valuable than a knowlege of history, it has well been said that those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.
Politician. In Massachusettes you could easily become a Senator.
School Teacher, in any government school. (If you have children, please do not home school them. Send them to a private school.)
Leader in any of the following: BATF, FBI, DEA, CIA, DHSS.
Please avoid public-sector jobs where you actually have to produce something or would be responsible for anything.
Hank
Agreed. That said, the curriculum is also too full of tests based solely on memorization skills (here's a map of Europe, fill in the names of each nation) instead of application (discuss the significance of the following five nations...). I know I can't remember facts I can't put in context, and suspect most others are the same.
Of course, handing out worksheets and grading multiple choice tests is much easier than essay, or even short answer questions.
Sammy, Sammy........either you weren't around in the 50s or you spent the decade under a rock.
I was there and we had more 'real' honor society students than the NEA "educators" turn out today.
I don't know of one kid in my high school class that ever got picked up for inhaling anything.
One student out of 200 got pregnant (and left school rather than bring the baby to finish with her).
Almost every male student was concerned that he was going to end up in Korea rather than college and most of us did.
My father-in-law passed the GED test when he was in his 60's but was refused a diploma because he dropped out of school prior to 6th grade.
Did you know that the word "gullible" is not in the dictionary?
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