Stan Brown wrote:
> You assume that it was my section that performed worse! (That's true,
> but I carefully avoided saying so.)
>
> Section A (mine) meets at 8 am, Section B at 2 pm. Not only does the
> time of day quite possibly have an effect, but since most people prefer
> not to have 8 am classes we can infer that it's likely many of the
> students in Section A waited until relatively late to register, which in
> turns suggests they were less highly motivated
> for the class.
>
> The dean has suggested the same self-selection hypothesis you mention.
> Another possible explanation, which I was unaware of when I posted, is
> that the instructor for section B held a review session for the half
> hour just before the exam.
Which immediately leads also to the question of how much of the class was
teaching to the exam and how much was teaching the subject matter.
However, I'm willing to suggest (without any evidence about _this specific
case_) that you gave the students too much freedom. You assumed that they
were adults, and didn't set up your lessons to force them to learn. I am
amazed by the number of students who think the purpose of school is to
avoid learning anything.
> So no, I'm not jumping out of any windows. (I did hand out a lot of
> referrals to the tutoring center.) Mostly I was curious about whether
> the apparent difference was a real one (as Jerry Dallal has confirmed it
> is). But as you suggest, we may have two different populations here.
This is a huge difference in test scores. But you know your students. Do
their test scores adequately reflect their knowledge? (This is probably a
better question to ask than whether the test scores are significantly
different.) Now, looking at your individual students, can you explain why
they do or do not know the material? My guess is that some are
unmotivated (can we still say lazy?), some have inadequate background,
some have . . .
I have always made it clear to my students that the grading scale is a
guide and a guarantee for them: if they get 90%, they get an A. But I
reserve the right to lower the scale so that, in theory at least, if I
believe a 30% student is really an A student, then 30% becomes an A.
After all, isn't that what "professional judgment" means: not slavishly
following an arithmetic rule?
Jon Miller
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