Mike- It is an interesting point re: medical schools (and really any test that is for licensing that requires a "minimum score to pass"). If you meet the minimum you pass- if not you have to study over and try again (which is rather expensive in a number of ways). So the mastery reward is building in a buffer in order to assure passing among other things. At least that's the scheme that most physicians, vets, clinical psychologists, counseling psychologists have expressed to me- perhaps that's another danger of limited data set though- I'm surely not offering my own cocktail party anecdotes as data! I know too much about my own memory fallibility. Of course, where one sets "pass" and how much material one must master goes back to a number of variables including ratios of damage done with Type I and Type II errors. ;) Tim
_______________________________ Timothy O. Shearon, PhD Professor and Chair Department of Psychology The College of Idaho Caldwell, ID 83605 email: [email protected] teaching: intro to neuropsychology; psychopharmacology; general; history and systems "You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." Dorothy Parker -----Original Message----- From: Michael Smith [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Sun 2/8/2009 8:07 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] globeandmail.com: Professor makes his mark, but it costs him his job What if the pass cuttoff is the equivalent of 80%? Then minimal performance would be fine. I only mention this because I believe several medical schools use a pass/fail system. So perhaps, pass/fail systems are ok, but our pass need not to be 50%. I assume, somehow, that the medical schools using pass/fail must get across the message that excellent performance is required for a "pass". I believe UofA (and UofT?) uses such a system --Mike --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
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