In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Eric Bohlman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donald Burrill) wrote in >news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]:
>> Ah. Now, that's the classical question allegedly addressed by >> statistics, isn't it? So: take a sample, ... >> Viewing the undergraduate students with whom I have had contact in the >> past several years, at two colleges and a university, as a sample, I >> would certainly be tempted to infer that the output of the population of >> "thousands and thousands of high schools" across the country is (on the >> average) indeed inferior to the output of the high schools across the >> country half a century ago. >> OTOH, possibly the two "outputs" are not comparable: construed as >> "those admitted to college/university", one suspects that the current >> population is much less selected-for-excellence, on the whole, than the >> population in the 1950s; except, as mentioned by some contributors to >> this thread, in the "elite" universities. >In fact, it was only about 50 years ago that the high school graduation >rate reached 50%, so there was a lot more selection going on back then. Of >course, not all that selection was specifically for academic ability; you >had students who couldn't afford to finish their secondary education >because they had to work full-time to support their families of origin, >among other things. And there were lots of well-paying, long-term jobs out >there that didn't require much in the way of education. >At the same time, admissions criteria have changed, becoming at least >apparently more objective. Apparently is the right term. They make great use of the high school GPA, and class rank in high school. This emphasizes studying for exams instead of learning, and they are most definitely NOT the same, especially if the ridiculous multiple choice exams are given. To make things more objective, multiple choice exams have become at least a major source of "information". These almost must be trivial pursuit; a good problem requires at least 15 minutes of available time, and should not be graded by the answer, but by the way it is approached and treated. Even breaking it down to its parts loses so much that the important parts cannot be tested. -- 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, Deptartment of Statistics, Purdue University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558 . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
