"David A. Heiser" wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Peter Westfall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 1999 6:45 PM
> Subject: Re: adjusting marks
>
> >
> >
> > Bob Hayden wrote:
> >
> > > ----- Forwarded message from Peter Westfall -----
> > >
> > > Deming himself (if I remember correctly) graded everyone as "A" until
> > > the administration noticed, and then they made his courses Pass-Fail.
> > >
> > > Deming was also very much against ranking students in any way, except
> > > for the possible exception of identifying an exceptional student that
> > > others might emulate (the > 3*sigma student) and identifying the
> > > exceptionally poor student (< 3*sigma) for remediation. All other
> > > students should be be essentially equivalent, in Deming's philosophy.
> > >
> > > ----- End of forwarded message from Peter Westfall -----
> > >
> > > Would you recommend this for drivers' license tests? Oh, I get it,
> > > that's what we're doing already! No wonder.
> > >
> > > I have to admit, it would sure simplify quality control if we
> > > considered anything within +- 3 s.d. to be OK. Then I guess the
> > > motivation would be to throw in a few clunkers now and then to keep
> >
> > > the s.d. as large as possible?
> >
> > Bob,
> >
> > Your remarks sound facetious. I was hoping to stimulate some serious
> > discussion. Have you read anything by Deming?
> >
> > Here is Deming's philosophy, as well as I can paraphrase it for the
> > present situation:
> >
> > Students/teachers/administrators form a system. The system has an aim,
> > which is (presumably) to educate everyone as well as possible, for the
> > good of the students, and for the good of society. What good does
> > ranking do? Does it help to achieve the aim of the system? Or rather,
> > is it simply a weeding process? Is ranking necessary? (these are mainly
> > Deming's words, but I must admit I see lots of value there.)
> >
> > Regarding making the standard deviation large, Deming would say that
> > management's (professors, administrators) job entails minimizing
> > variation among students. This can be done in the usual ways -
> > admissions procedures, advising, prerequisites. Individual classes are
> > "processes" within the larger system, and in the process of continual
> > improvement, one seeks ways to minimize variation within the processes.
> > Deming shows a diagram where the knowledge of people before training is
> > scattered and highly variable, and after training the mean level is
> > higher but the variation smaller. The inference is that the more
> > effective the classroom experience, the less variation in the final
> > levels of knowledge and abilities of the students, as they pertain to the
> > subject at hand.
> >
> > My question is again: Is ranking really necessary? Given the goal of
> > reducing variation, what does it help? Students in competition for the
> > scarce A's will withhold information from one another. Does this achieve
> > the stated aim of the system in an optimal way? W. Edwards Deming would
> > have said, most emphatically, no. He spoke quite often of the
> > educational system particularly in his later years; his message was not
> > at all meant to be limited to manufacturing.
> >
> >
> > Peter
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------
> Very Intersting!!!!
>
> I don't agree with Demming. Life is essentially a matter of diversity, and
> being able to find one's own "niche". The process of ranking is inherent in
> life whenever there is stress on a population. Going to college is indeed
> "stress".
>
> If in order to suceed, I need to obtain a PhD from Stanford, then I have to
> get high grades and attain other acheivments to get in that few percent that
> gets accepted. If my college grades are all "pass", how am I going to
> compete with the applicate with A+++ grades from NCU?
>
> How are new hires for the expensive New York/Washington law firms hired? Not
> on pass/fail but on which law school and how the professors rated the
> student and what were the extra curricular activities? Much of this is
> subjective, but when you have 300 applicants for one job, you have to do
> some ranking to pick the top 3 or 5.
>
> Demming I think has the quality control mindset of pass/fail in terms of
> manufactured objects, where everything is acceptable between -3 and +3 sigma
> (Now it is -6 to +6 sigma.) This may be fine for shop work on the floor. In
(I think Deming had some serious problems with 6 sigma QC, but that is besides
the point.)
>
> this country the only thing we manufacture now is credit and money to buy
> manufactured goods from other countries.
>
> You need a very diverse population now. The process of ranking as flawed as
> it is, works, because there are so many areas where one can find his own
> niche, and ranking is one way of finding one's niche.
>
> DAH
No doubt about it, we can't make everyone the same, nor do we want to. We can,
however, make their levels of understanding and logical thought processes
similar through proper education. Human diversity is expected. We can't
change people's race, creed, color, physical characteristics, nor does Deming
or anyone else want to. However, we can educate people to similar levels of
understanding and logical thought processes, to the benefit of a diverse
workplace.
Your comment implies that the goal of the system should be to rank, to assign
labels to people, essentially to weed - a kind of social Darwinism. This is
where Deming would disagree - he would say that the goal is to educate people
for their own good and for the good of society. I think he would have said that
the use of grading to do this is lazy, inefficient, and ultimately destructive.
It could be done instead by more careful admissions processes, advising, and so
on. He also would have said that this is not going to be easy, much like
learning to play the piano!
Thanks for the continuing discussion!
Peter
