In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Peter Westfall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Herman Rubin wrote:
>> In article <83umq6$75s$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, a <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> >In article <83ugke$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> >says...
>> >>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>> >>Rich Ulrich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> >>>On 22 Dec 1999 14:47:38 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (dennis roberts) wrote:
............
>> >>>Actually, I see where I might want to be more arbitrary that just
>> >>>changing a cutoff. How do you reward someone who is really trying
>> >>>hard, vs. someone who is smart but is blowing it off?
>> >>Why should you? The grade should be on knowledge and the ability
>> >>to use it, not on effort. If somebody is born with the knowledge,
>> >>he deserves the grade and credit. If someone works full time and
>> >>cannot do it, he deserves to fail.
>> >Hm, just because a student is born with the knowledge, he/she should deserve
>> >the grade and credit although he/she didn't do well in the class???
>> What is the purpose of a grade? The legitimate purposes are to
>> tell the world what the student knows and can do, and to advise
>> the student on the same matter. One can have the latter without
>> the former; I believe in comprehensive examinations to provide
>> information to others.
[Quoted material reformatted for legibility.]
>Your comment suggests that our primary job as educators is to rank
>the students. I disagree. Our primary job to educate the
>students.
I have never stated that ranking is legitimate; I believe
that class rank, etc., should be prohibited. And I agree
that we should educate the students; this education means the
imparting of the understanding of subject matter and the
ability to use it. The evaluation should be absolute, not
in any way relative.
An undesirable but probably necessary aspect of this is to
provide the information about how well the above has been
accomplished. Major universities do not need graduate
schools to provide information about how good their PhDs are;
they can assess this themselves for the small number of
people they are hiring. Good universities COULD assess
applicants for student positions, but need better information
at present, as the costs of assessment are too high. The
presently available information is atrocious.
>The latter purpose (advising) is indeed legitimate. The former (tell
>the world what they know) is what we use in our current educational
>system, and its value as a predictive tool is questionable. In the
>case of the student who slacks off and gets an "A", the predictive
>use of the "A" is highly questionable. A future employer might see
>the "A" as indicative of diligence, hard work, when such is clearly
>not the case.
>If the student already knows the material and slacks off through my
>class, I would be happy to tell the world that this student is not
>someone you want (to hire, to be in your class, to work with). My
>advice to such a student would be not to take my class, especially if
>their thought is to receive an easy "A".
On the other hand, I would advise the employer to hire
the one who understands the material, unless the job is
essentially routine. The one who works hard rarely does;
he is not going to come up with a better way, or do well
at something out of the ordinary. Your approach may be
good for a trade school, but not a university.
It is not a matter of taking a course to receive an easy
grade; we should do our best to eliminate this, by giving
credit without taking the course. But there is no reason a
student should do any "work" in a course beyond that needed
for understanding the material, with the minimum necessary
added to demonstrate the understanding.
Suppose a student needs a few items from a course, and
these are not well presented in books; this is often the
case. That student should "take" the course, but should
do little work.
Or the student had no idea how easy a course was, or it
may even be the case that a faster-paced course was not
available; that student should not do any more work than
is needed to learn the material.
It would be better to eliminate course grades, or even
courses taken, from a student's record, and give degrees
only on appropriately designed comprehensive examinations.
These need not, and probably should not, be the usual type
of closed-book time-pressure examinations, but tests of
whether what has been learned can be used, much in novel
situations, and under reasonable conditions.
>Related to this discussion is the well-documented low predictive
>ability of SAT scores. Use of such tools (grades, SAT scores) that
>have low predictive ability to make decisions that affect
>individuals' lives amounts to little more than a lottery, mentioned
>previously in this discussion group by Eric Bohlman.
If the universities had any reasonable way of assessing
candidates for admission, the SAT would be dropped. They
do not.
>There have been at least three empirical examples presented in the
>current discussion that suggest that the use of ranking is
>detrimental - one my example about Texas Instruments, another a study
>on how ranking stifled creativity in art students (see Steve Simon's
>post), a third mentioned in Eric Bohlman's post. What empirical
>evidence is there to the contrary?
>> >I respect students who try hard and give their best. I have no respect for
>> >smart students who don't live up to their talents. If a student works full time
>> >and still can't do it, I'll never ever fail him/her. To me, the most important
>> >thing is that you give your best.
>> This might be from the standpoint of socialist ethics, but not
>> from the standpoint of education. Especially if grades are not
>> public knowledge, one is doing a service by failing a student
>> who is unable to grasp the material.
>Better yet, such a student should be properly advised.
>Peter
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
