I will just drop in a couple of additional comments to Robert's post -
On 5 Feb 2001 08:52:28 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Robert J.
MacG. Dawson) wrote:
> Rich Ulrich wrote:
> >
> > (1) There is (something like) "Is the right answer given by someone
> > with a good IQ?" I think that we are all agreed that (C) should meet
> > that requirement. Further, I imagine that the item was validated
> > *statistically* by this standard -- marking "C" goes along with
> > higher scores on other test items.
RJD >
> Unless IQ is what you're trying to test, it's not the IQ, it's the
> knowledge and understanding that's important.
Is this an assent to my eventual point? - validating the precise
content is "important" but it is easy to overlook.
>
me > >
> > (2) There is a narrower approach -- which, indeed, was the question
> > specified when this item was posted. "Does the item show whether the
> > student understands rounding?" Will it be answered correctly by
> > everyone who does, or could naive respondents be led astray?
RJD>
> Does the idea of "a naive respondent who nonetheless understands
> rounding" really mean anything? Somebody who is naive *about rounding*
> does not truly understand it. Whether somebody is naive about (say)
> taking candy fron strangers is irrelevant here.
The "naive respondent" that I have in mind is one who understands the
lessons, but has not over-learned her "rounding" the way that all of
us have: we will trust, that a problem that CAN be a rounding
problem WILL BE a rounding problem.
Or, is that what we are supposed to teach? I do wonder whether
my complaint is fundamentally against bad teaching. I do imagine
that concept-insensitive teachers are using words and examples that
are just as sloppy as the Item. And then they wonder why some
students, who insist on their own poetic or neurotic interpretations,
Don't Get It.
[ snip, rest ]
--
Rich Ulrich, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.pitt.edu/~wpilib/index.html
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