At 03:34 PM 10/6/00 -0500, Michael Granaas wrote:
I'm still not sure where my thoughts are headed, but I'm definitly not
>seeing the same big problem as Dennis on this one.
>
>Mike
this is certainly ok ... no one has to work their way over to my position
my main points are:
1. psychologically, the concept is not clean ... underachievement is
possible ... overachievement is NOT possible ... logically speaking
2. the notion of over/under achievement is based on using ABILITY as the
(gold) standard ... like, there is really something special about ability
... or IQ ... ? further, it assumes that your MEASURED ability is correct
... only your achievement has the flaw ...
3. over/under achievement are based on errors in the statistical model (no
matter what things are in the model) ... NOT some characteristic of the person
4. over and under ABILITY make just as much sense or NONsense as over/under
achievement
i think what is important is not one's ability .... as an indicator of what
they CAN do ... but, rather ... what they DO ... and, if what they do is
low ... then the key is not to resort to ability and say ... "hey you ...
you are smart enough to do it ... now DO it" ... the key is to push forward
and help them improve their achievment
we don't need any reference to ability to help them do better ... in fact,
the reference to ability can be detrimental to our goals ... if we think
they are achieving TO their ability .... then why try to make them learn or
perform better? there is no incentive to do this ... however, if we forget
about ability ... then our goal is to help them learn as much as they can ...
==============================================================
dennis roberts, penn state university
educational psychology, 8148632401
http://roberts.ed.psu.edu/users/droberts/drober~1.htm
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