Marie Helweg-Larsen responded to Chris Green's comments on a report contending that school chemistry standards in the UK have fallen back over a period of some 40 years as follows: > Can giving students old exams answer the question of whether > students know more or less (or different things) than decades ago. > Maybe. I wonder why students today should be able to do better > on a test of 30 years ago. Doesn't the content of what you learn > change over time as well as the type of inquiry (e.g., memorization > vs. problem solving)?
These are valid questions, and I'll attempt to answer them from knowledge of reports on school standards in the UK plus 40 years personal experience of teaching physics and mathematics for the national examinations normally taken at 16 and 18 years respectively. On the first point, the article, and those I cite below, relate to science and mathematics, and although certain topics may be replaced by others, the essential foundations of the subjects have not changed. On the issue of memorization vs problem solving, there is no necessary conflict. Basic formulae or concepts should be "learned" not by rote, but by become familiar with them by frequent use in tackling a variety of relevant questions. In any case, as far as formulae are concerned, even the most simple of them are now provided for the students, whereas up to the early 1980s students were expected to know them. On the article in question, I know that a friend of mine who has taught chemistry in schools for some 40 years would agree wholeheartedly with the following: "The brightest pupils are not being stretched, or trained in mathematical techniques, because they can get a grade A* without doing a single calculation. Conversely, the majority get at least a 'good pass' - grade C - by showing merely a superficial knowledge on a wide range of issues, but no understanding of the fundamentals." http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/nov/27/science-easier-exams I know from teaching mathematics up to the mid-1990s (and doing some tutoring since then) that a considerable number of topics that used to be in the GCSE exam for 16 year olds (before 1980, "Ordinary Level") are now in the first year Advanced Level syllabuses (and the exam questions are generally much simpler). As for the issue of "type of enquiry", to take a typical example: At one time students at O Level used to be simply presented with an algebra problem to solve. In the last couple of decades not only have such problems become simpler, they are broken down into steps, so that the method of solving them is provided for the student. Previously the student had to take the initiative him or herself, and was able to provide an alternative method, something precluded by the current presentation. Now away from anecdotal evidence (if such it be) to studies on standards in the UK: On mathematics: Tackling the mathematics problem London Mathematical Society/Institute of Mathematics/Royal Statistical Society October 1995 "There is no doubt that there has been, in an obvious sense, a devaluation of grades. This observation is supported by evidence presented by Professor C. Fitz-Gibbon to the 1995 meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Newcastle in which she reported that A-level mathematics candidates in 1994 with a given score in the International Test of Developed Abilities achieved roughly two grades higher than candidates with comparable scores in the same test in 1988." http://www.lms.ac.uk/policy/tackling/node13.html "A study carried out at the CEM centre, an education research unit at Durham University, has recently suggested a dramatic decline in maths standards. For nearly two decades up to 50,000 pupils a year have taken the same ability test before facing A-levels. Researchers found that, in most subjects, pupils of the same ability achieved two grades higher in their A-levels in 2006 than in 1988 jumping to three grades in maths." http://education.guardian.co.uk/alevels/story/0,,2126865,00.html More generally: "Robert Coe and Peter Tymms, from Durham's Curriculum, Evaluation and Management Centre, analysed standards achieved in A-levels between 1988 and 2007." "A-level and GCSE grades achieved in 2007 certainly do correspond to a lower level of general academic ability than the same grades would have done in previous years," said the report. "Whether or not they are better taught makes no difference to this interpretation; the same grade corresponds to a lower level of general ability." http://tinyurl.com/5gpngz Reference Coe, R.J. (2007). Changes in standards at GCSE and A-level: Evidence from ALIS and YELLIS. Centre for Curriculum, Evaluation and Management. Durham, Durham University. http://tinyurl.com/5fk9xm I'm not saying that there have not been any improvements in teaching school physics,chemistry and mathematics in recent decades, but I think it is incontrovertible that standards of basic knowledge and application in these subjects have fallen considerably. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org **************************************************** Helweg-Larsen, Marie Mon, 01 Dec 2008 05:57:58 -0800 Chris Can giving students old exams answer the question of whether students know more or less (or different things) than decades ago. Maybe. I wonder why students today should be able to do better on a test of 30 years ago. Doesn't the content of what you learn change over time as well as the type of inquiry (e.g., memorization vs. problem solving)? How have standardizes tests in the US changed over time, for example? We could conduct a simple test in TIPster land (calling only TIPSters of a certain age). Locate an Intro psych test from 20, 30 and 40 years ago and give it to your students today. Would they do better or worse? Would the result be interpretable? Do you expect less today? Marie **************************************************** Marie Helweg-Larsen, Ph.D. Department Chair and Associate Professor of Psychology Kaufman 168, Dickinson College Carlisle, PA 17013, [cid:[email protected]] (717) 245-1562, [cid:[email protected]] (717) 245-1971 Office Hours: Tues and Thur 9:30-10:30, Wed 10:30-11:45 http://www.dickinson.edu/departments/psych/helwegm **************************************************** From: Christopher D. Green [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, December 01, 2008 12:45 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: [tips] Pupils of today struggle with science questions of the 60s | Education | guardian.co.uk We professors often complain about "students today," and we are just as often reassured by our apparently more compassionate colleagues that we ourselves were not so "serious" as we now are when we were students, and that students have probably always been much the same, but that many of them turn out well in the end nevertheless. Well, in the UK, the Royal Society of Chemistry has just conducted a fascinating experiment in which today's students were given standardized science tests from decades past. And what was the result? The further back you go, all the way to the 1960s, the worse today's student do on them: 35% on the toughest questions of the current version of the test, 23% of the same test from the 1980s, 18% on the test from the 1970s, and 15% on the test from the 1960s. Of course, the government is claiming that "science has evolved" over the past 40 years (and, thus, presumably science questions from the 1980s, 1970s, and 1960s are unfamiliar to students today). Perhaps, but I would be interested to see just how "alien" question from past tests are, or whether that "other" hypothesis may have some life in it yet. Here's the Guardian article about it: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/nov/27/science-easier-exams Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
