views on the mcas?

2002-01-29 Thread ydf
http://askearth.com/go/view_request?request=5058 = Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/

Re: MCAS and the TI83 calculator

2001-10-08 Thread Christopher J. Mecklin
Dr. Gallagher, I'm pleased that my post about the TI-83 was helpful. Your postings (and those of others) on the problem with MCAS have been both enlightening and disturbing. I'm going to use the MCAS as an example of what can go wrong with a test. Also, this discussion has inspired me

MCAS and the TI83 calculator

2001-10-07 Thread EugeneGall
Dr. Mecklin, Thanks so much for your post about the TI83 calculator.  On a hunch, I looked at the MCAS instructions page.  The boxplot problem was asked in Section 3 of the 3-d test, and in the final 2 sections, students were encouraged to bring their graphing calculators.  The MCAS test writers

RE: MCAS, statistics and other math problems

2001-10-05 Thread Olsen, Chris
: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2001 9:33 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: MCAS, statistics and other math problems During the last week in August, there was a lengthy thread on sci.stat.edu about problems with the probability and statistics

RE: MCAS, statistics and other math problems

2001-10-05 Thread Dennis Roberts
At 07:03 AM 10/5/01 -0500, Olsen, Chris wrote: Professor Gallagher and All -- It would appear that neither the appeal systems nor a claim of technical adequacy would be a response to your concern about bad questions. The claim of technical adequacy, i.e. that good students tend to answer

Re: MCAS, statistics and other math problems

2001-10-05 Thread NoSpam54
Thanks, and moral support is appreciated. MCAS is very controversial in MA. None of the major papers have yet called into question the test itself. Now, the DOE apparently is saying that they stand behind every question. I believe it might help if the MA DOE MCAS group, headed by Jeff

Re: MCAS, statistics and other math problems

2001-10-05 Thread Christopher J. Mecklin
Dr. Gallagher and Edstat newsgroup: Here's my take on the MCAS and boxplots. (1) I agree with Eugene Gallagher and others in that the question about boxplots on the MCAS is poor, since the correct answer depends on whether you learned the Tukey boxplot (that indicates outliers) or the quick

Re: MCAS, statistics and other math problems

2001-10-05 Thread dennis roberts
At 12:41 PM 10/5/01 -0500, Christopher J. Mecklin wrote: (4) If the Massachusetts Department of Education really wants to include a boxplot item on the test, it should either be a multiple choice question written so that the correct answer is the same no matter which type of boxplot one was

MCAS, statistics and other math problems

2001-10-04 Thread EugeneGall
During the last week in August, there was a lengthy thread on sci.stat.edu about problems with the probability and statistics questions in MCAS, the high stakes test required for graduating from a MA public high school. Shortly after participating in that thread, I wrote up my analyses of 6

Re: outliers (was MCAS)

2001-08-31 Thread Jay Warner
IMHO, no you are not being an idiot (I'll leave question of 'again' up to you :) the question of what is an outlier, and what is not, comes up every time you have data collected by undergraduates in a standard lab. They believe the data should fit some pre-arranged principle/equation. So

Re: outliers (was MCAS)

2001-08-31 Thread Rich Ulrich
On 30 Aug 2001 12:14:21 -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jill Binker) wrote: [ snip, prior post ] Well, yes. You should always stare at all your data (though I guess a lot of people leave this crucial step out). I thought there were two important reasons to look for outliers. An outlier may be a

RE: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-30 Thread Donald Burrill
On Tue, 28 Aug 2001, Dennis Roberts wrote in part: however ... the flagging of outliers is totally arbitrary ... i see no rationale for saying that if a data point is 1.5 IQRs away from some point ... that there is something significant about that If the data are normally distributed (or

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-30 Thread Robert J. MacG. Dawson
I wrote: Er, no. Q1 ~ mu - 2/3 sigma Q3 ~ mu + 2/3 sigma 1 IQR ~ 4/3 sigma 1.5 IQR ~ 2 sigma inner fence ~ mu +- 2 2/3 sigma which is about the 0.5 percentile. -right so far - and then burbled The inner fences are selected

RE: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-30 Thread EugeneGall
boxplot which uses the box +/- 1.5 IQR rule. (Of course, if there are no outliers -- by that definition -- the two are identical.) Interesting. As noted in earlier posts, the National Council of Mathematics Teachers and MCAS include only the quick boxplot in their definition of boxplot. The 10th

outliers (was MCAS)

2001-08-30 Thread Jill Binker
At 9:41 AM -0400 8/30/01, Dennis Roberts wrote: all of this is assuming of course, that some extreme value ... by ANY definition ... is bad in some way ... that is, worthy of special attention for fear that it got there by some nefarious method i am not sure the flagging of extreme values has

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-29 Thread Jay Warner
consequence. So long as the questions have the same relationship to technical content as the famous MCAS #39 has to what we call statistical thinking (and doing), we can expect more and continuing distortions of education content. What teacher would struggle to understand and communicate the real thing

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-28 Thread Robert J. MacG. Dawson
I wrote: An obvious approach that would seem to give the advantages hoped for from the focussed test without the disadvantages would be just to group questions in the original test in roughly increasing order of difficulty. which, I think, answers Dennis' question. I

RE: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-28 Thread Dennis Roberts
(and the MCAS test writers) have adopted one feature of the Tukey boxplot, but not the most important feature: the ability to flag outliers. Eugene Gallagher however ... the flagging of outliers is totally arbitrary ... i see no rationale for saying that if a data point is 1.5 IQRs away from

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-28 Thread Dennis Roberts
At 01:33 PM 8/28/01 -0500, Jay Warner wrote: Suggest we step back a minute. by de facto definition ... the MCAS tests ... are intended to convey ... MINIMUM skills/knowledge that they expect all high school GRADUATES to have ... they certainly cannot purport to test and/or represent anything

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-28 Thread EugeneGall
I got an email from Anand Vaishnav, the Globe reporter who did Friday's article on the math and stats problems in MCAS. Only about 50% of the 63000 10th graders in MA got median and range. I suspect that mean and range probably was the most popular incorrect answer (according to the MCAS

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-28 Thread Eric Bohlman
Dennis Roberts [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: if we take the infamous #39 item ... where the options were (if i recall)... A. mean only B. median only C. range and mean D. range and median well, even if we accepted this item as fair ... a student looks at the graph ... sees that there is a

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-28 Thread Jim Callahan
Eric Bohlman wrote: And furthermore, not all the wrong answers are equally bad. Someone who would answer A or B must know quite a bit less than someone who would answer C (in fact, it would tend to indicate that they had no concept at all of what the boxplot represented). I don't believe

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-28 Thread dennis roberts
At 10:43 PM 8/28/01 +, EugeneGall wrote: I got an email from Anand Vaishnav, the Globe reporter who did Friday's article on the math and stats problems in MCAS. Only about 50% of the 63000 10th graders in MA got median and range. I suspect that mean and range probably was the most popular

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-28 Thread dennis roberts
At 11:30 PM 8/28/01 +, Jim Callahan wrote: Eric Bohlman wrote: And furthermore, not all the wrong answers are equally bad. Someone who would answer A or B must know quite a bit less than someone who would answer C (in fact, it would tend to indicate that they had no concept at all of

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-27 Thread Jay Warner
necessary to survive at the next level. In the case of the MCAS tests, they must pass it to graduate from high school. Asking questions that are at the high end of the expected learning level (don't ask me for an operational definition of that - I don't make these terms up:) is a waste of time - we

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-27 Thread EugeneGall
David Winsemius wrote Here are the three stated competencies that the test is supposed to measure: http://www.doe.mass.edu/mcas/01release/ 1) Select, create, and interpret an appropriate graphical representation (e.g., scatterplot, table, stem-and-leaf plots, box-and-whisker plots, circle graph

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp

2001-08-27 Thread EugeneGall
Jay Warner wrote: Trusting that Eugene or someone in Massachusetts can respond, I ask, Are box and whisker plots included in the material that _must_ be taught in the K-12 curriculum? I believe a previous post pointed out that older intro stat books, including those listed as suitable for MCAS

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-27 Thread Dennis Roberts
MCAS test is a make-or-break high stakes test. A straight-A average won't get you a diploma if you fail this test, and the majority of 10th graders in MA fail this test, as it is now being scored. 80% of hispanic students, 76% of black students, and 36% of white students in MA failed the 2000 10th

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp

2001-08-27 Thread Dennis Roberts
At 12:31 PM 8/27/01 +, EugeneGall wrote: The Harcourt-Brace description of the boxplot, which is now being taught to MA students, isn't a proper boxplot (maybe the Harcourt-Brace K-12 boxplot is different from the Tukey boxplot), becuase it doesn't properly plot outliers and extreme

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-27 Thread EugeneGall
/ Silber abstract: Ed board goes off course Boston Herald; Feb 2, 2001; by John SILBER; The board also authorized two new tests in addition to the standard MCAS test: the parallel test and the focused test. These terms are typical educationist smog. As far as one can make out from the Department

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-27 Thread Rich Ulrich
On 27 Aug 2001 12:11:12 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (EugeneGall) wrote: David Winsemius wrote Here are the three stated competencies that the test is supposed to measure: http://www.doe.mass.edu/mcas/01release/ I think it is legitimate for a class-room exam to offer an item that rewards classroom

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp

2001-08-27 Thread EugeneGall
Dennis Roberts wrote: At 12:31 PM 8/27/01 +, EugeneGall wrote: The Harcourt-Brace description of the boxplot, which is now being taught to MA students, isn't a proper boxplot (maybe the Harcourt-Brace K-12 boxplot is different from the Tukey boxplot), becuase it doesn't properly plot

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-27 Thread Robert J. MacG. Dawson
The focused test eliminates questions that would enable students to score A's, B's, and C's. All they get is another chance to score a D rather than an F. Implicit in the very concept of the focused test is the idea that a student who fails the standard MCAS test cannot be more than a D

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-27 Thread Dennis Roberts
At 01:57 PM 8/27/01 -0300, Robert J. MacG. Dawson wrote: The focussed test isn't an entirely bad idea; it does allow a genuine D student to avoid getting blown out of the water by questions intended to discriminate between A and B students. However, it seems like a very poor way to

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-27 Thread EugeneGall
Robert Dawson wrote: An obvious approach that would seem to give the advantages hoped for from the focussed test without the disadvantages would be just to group questions in the original test in roughly increasing order of difficulty. One might (I'm not so sure that this would be a good

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-27 Thread EugeneGall
I just took another look at the front page Boston Globe article that described the most difficult MCAS question. The most difficult question on the 2001 math test is a question involving probability and geometry, question 9 on the MCAS test http://www.doe.mass.edu/mcas/01release/ I've seen

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-27 Thread Jay Warner
gt; fails the standard MCAS test cannot be more than a D student. Such students > will be accommodated with a special test on which they cannot score better than > a D: MCAS for Dummies. The cynicism of the proposal is almost beyond belief ... > The board is telling every 10th-grader in Mas

RE: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-26 Thread Olsen, Chris
serves is to test those things that are a part of the state curriculum in Massachusetts. If the MCAS is testing material not on the curriculum, this would also seem to be a much more serious problem than median vs. mean for a boxplot. -- Chris Chris Olsen George Washington High School 2205

RE: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-26 Thread dennis roberts
At 10:40 AM 8/26/01 -0500, Olsen, Chris wrote: Dear Sir or Madam: I read with interest your posting on the issue of the so-called Tukey boxplot. I would like to make a few observations, if you will forgive the temerity of a high school teacher. since i was not the person posting the

RE: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-26 Thread Olsen, Chris
involved. I am not familiar with the MCAS test, nor for that matter, the curriculum in Massachusetts. However, I can imagine a public uproar if a high stakes test delivered low percentages of correct scores for a significant part of the population, unless there was a very low cut score for passing

RE: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp

2001-08-26 Thread EugeneGall
can be downloaded as a pdf at: http://www.doe.mass.edu/mcas/01release/ The exam shows a box and whisker plot. The boxplot is question 39 of 40 The other math/stats questions are 9, 26, 36, 37 and 40. I take back my earlier criticism of this question. The question is worse than I thought

RE: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-26 Thread dennis roberts
the first hurdle an item has to pass is ... a content one ... is the content that we are asking about ... in the item ... sensible ... important enough ... to spend 1 of the 6 items worth on the test ... given all the concepts that could be tested on the test if the answer to this is yes ...

RE: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp

2001-08-26 Thread dennis roberts
Which statistics—mean, median, mode, range—can be determined from this graph? A. mean only B. median only C. range and mean D. range and median . here is the item ... without the boxplot ... now, the lower point is roughly 15 ... the spot above the | is about 26 ... and the upper end point is

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-26 Thread RCKnodt
Since there were six questions regarding statistics on the test, I'd like to see what questions those members of the mailing list might propose rather than the six that were used. Dr. Robert C. Knodt 4949 Samish Way, #31 Bellingham, WA 98226 [EMAIL PROTECTED] The man who does not read good

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-26 Thread David Winsemius
Here are the three stated competencies that the test is supposed to measure: http://www.doe.mass.edu/mcas/01release/ 1) Select, create, and interpret an appropriate graphical representation (e.g., scatterplot, table, stem-and-leaf plots, box-and-whisker plots, circle graph, line graph, and line

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp

2001-08-26 Thread Jay Warner
EugeneGall wrote: [snip] I'm really curious why the Boston Globe did not publish this question and answer. Many suspect that the Globe is going easy on MCAS. Could it be that the Globe consultants realized this 2001 MCAS boxplot question was a stinker for such an important make-or-break

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-25 Thread EugeneGall
Some of the MCAS stats and probability questions were tough but fair. I disagreed vehemently with one question: Question 39 on the 10th grade Math 2001 test. It showed a Tukey boxplot and asked whether the graph represented a mean and range or a median and range. Now, this question will do one

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-25 Thread dennis roberts
... and if someone misses it ... they should not be docked as much as many other more fundamentally important items ... that hopefully WILL be put on the test At 02:17 PM 8/25/01 +, EugeneGall wrote: Some of the MCAS stats and probability questions were tough but fair. I disagreed vehemently

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-25 Thread RCKnodt
In a message dated 8/25/01 9:06:18 AM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: whether the item you talk about rises to the level of being important enough ... i am not sure ... certainly, in the overall scheme of things ... IF it is included ... it would have to be considered to

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp

2001-08-25 Thread EugeneGall
) The variance of the sampe 3) The standard deviation of the sample 4) Absolutely nothing Of course, the answer is 4) but students/parents and teachers would really be outraged at this question and answer. This question is every bit as valid as the MCAS question 39. The answer hinges only on a trivial

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of

2001-08-25 Thread dennis roberts
conceptually yes ... since, some items are clearly more important than others ... empirically ... since this has been explored many times ... back in the 70s and 80s ... it seems to have no impact on rel and val ... who decides? well, one way is to say ... experts ... have them rate items in

Re: Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp

2001-08-25 Thread dennis roberts
At 07:35 PM 8/25/01 +, EugeneGall wrote: The answer hinges only on a trivial choice made by Tukey when he described the boxplot. Incidentally, Tufte criticized the lack of information in the box width in the Tukey boxplot and proposed an alternative. i don't think this is relevant to the

Boston Globe: MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of probability

2001-08-24 Thread Alan Zaslavsky
/MCAS_results_show_weakness_in_teens_grasp_of_probabilityP.shtml MCAS results show weakness in teens' grasp of probability By Anand Vaishnav, Globe Staff, 8/24/2001 ome Massachusetts math teachers say they take a gamble and don't spend too much class time teaching probability, and it apparently showed on the 2001 MCAS exam

Re: MA MCAS statistical fallacy

2001-01-30 Thread Rich Ulrich
On 22 Jan 2001 15:58:16 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (dennis roberts) wrote: At 03:28 PM 1/22/01 -0500, Rich Ulrich wrote: snip, details of my alternative examples of statements as i said before ... given the stem and the choice C of 1 foot ... i think any intelligent examinee could argue

Re: MA MCAS statistical fallacy

2001-01-30 Thread dennis roberts
i think that one thing that math class teaches you about "measurement" is that there is error ... well maybe they do, now that i think of it, i am not so sure how clear this notion is taught ... but, let's assume that it is ... math would also reinforce meaning of the use of the english (

Re: A much more basic MCAS fallacy?

2001-01-28 Thread Rich Ulrich
for the 1999 exam: http://www.doe.mass.edu/mcas/99results/interp99/full_guide.pdf ... In other DOE documents it states that a score over 280 or less than 200 is possible on some tests in some years, but these extremes will be converted to 200 or 280. In the following technical report

Re: A much more basic MCAS fallacy?

2001-01-25 Thread Thom Baguley
dennis roberts wrote: well, if george bush pushes for more testing for accountability ... across the nation like in texas, then i suspect more WILL get into this debate ... either voluntarily or, being forced into it for some reason or another the major problem is not that the community of

Re: A much more basic MCAS fallacy?

2001-01-24 Thread Jay Warner
Gene Gallagher wrote: [snip] I have no idea what logic went into developing this 200 - 280 point scaling system. The point system for grading Las Vegas boxing matches makes as much sense to me [snip again] Check out page 33 in the pdf and 31 in the report. There were 72 points

RE: A much more basic MCAS fallacy?

2001-01-24 Thread Olsen, Chris
Jay and All -- I have been following with interest the discussion on MCAS. Jay Warner writes... the idea of measuring educational performance is fundamentally worthwhile to meet certain objectives. the methods described here fall far short of any ideal,and appear to fall short

Re: A much more basic MCAS fallacy?

2001-01-24 Thread Tony T. Warnock
There is another problem with testing, bureaucracies, schools, etc. One does not "teach to the test," rather one "teaches to the budget." Individual teachers may be rewarded by how well their students do on the tests and so teach the tests. The school may be in the situation that a poor school

Re: A much more basic MCAS fallacy?

2001-01-23 Thread Robert J. MacG. Dawson
Gene Gallagher wrote: The scale is set from 200 to 280, but the maximum score that I've seen so far is 257 (Boston Latin Math). The DOE only provides these data as pdf's so it is difficult to find the max. OK, so I didn't dream it. That leaves the question:

Re: MA MCAS statistical fallacy

2001-01-23 Thread P.G.Hamer
dennis roberts wrote: there just is no good way to argue against the original choice C ... IN THE CONTEXT OF THE STEM OF THE QUESTION I am reminded of the joke article that contains many `pollitically incorrect' answers to the exam question "given a barometer how do you measure the hight of a

Re: MA MCAS statistical fallacy, rather OT

2001-01-23 Thread Robert J. MacG. Dawson
"P.G.Hamer" wrote: dennis roberts wrote: there just is no good way to argue against the original choice C ... IN THE CONTEXT OF THE STEM OF THE QUESTION I am reminded of the joke article that contains many `politically incorrect' answers to the exam question "given a barometer how

Re: MA MCAS statistical fallacy

2001-01-23 Thread Tony T. Warnock
"P.G.Hamer" wrote: dennis roberts wrote: there just is no good way to argue against the original choice C ... IN THE CONTEXT OF THE STEM OF THE QUESTION I am reminded of the joke article that contains many `pollitically incorrect' answers to the exam question "given a barometer how do

Re: A much more basic MCAS fallacy?

2001-01-23 Thread dennis roberts
while gene has read these documents carefully (someone has to right?) ... i have not BUT, the following tidbit struck my interest Comparisons of School- and District-Level Scores The statistical significance of these comparisons is based on the number of students tested. Whether

Re: A much more basic MCAS fallacy?

2001-01-22 Thread Robert J. MacG. Dawson
"Daniel P. B. Smith" wrote: Can anybody possibly believe that a difference of one point in 245.3 can possibly be significant? We're talking about schools with a less than a maybe sixty fourth-graders in them. This just runs against common sense... Didn't somebody say a week or

Re: A much more basic MCAS fallacy?

2001-01-22 Thread Gene Gallagher
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Robert J. MacG. Dawson) wrote: "Daniel P. B. Smith" wrote: Can anybody possibly believe that a difference of one point in 245.3 can possibly be significant? We're talking about schools with a less than a maybe sixty fourth-graders in

A much more basic MCAS fallacy?

2001-01-20 Thread Daniel P. B. Smith
Callahan 245.3-1.0 Oldham242.2 6.5 Prescott 242.5 5.5 These seem to me like minuscule differences. Needless to say, all public reporting and discussion of MCAS scores seems to assume that the scores are perfectly accurate, with no stated margin

Re: MA MCAS statistical fallacy

2001-01-17 Thread Rich Ulrich
On Tue, 16 Jan 2001 14:14:36 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (J. Williams) concluded: Maybe, I am missing something, but think the original question and response items are quite clear and concise. I see nothing particularly "loose" about it. The essentials of a class interval used in frequency

Re: MA MCAS statistical fallacy

2001-01-17 Thread dennis roberts
At 03:57 PM 1/17/01 -0500, Rich Ulrich wrote: - Okay, here is my answer before I repeat the official ones. The "greatest possible difference" is *at least* one foot. If this is a dedicated math question, the aspect of roundoff should give "one foot (minimum)"; and any slightest introduction

Re: MA MCAS statistical fallacy

2001-01-16 Thread J. Williams
On Mon, 15 Jan 2001 19:47:49 -0500, Rich Ulrich [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Concerning the MCAS. There was a discussion last month in another Usenet group, alt.usage.english, concerning one of its math questions which was written too loosely. Here is the start of that thread. The thread has

Re: MA MCAS statistical fallacy

2001-01-16 Thread Robert J. MacG. Dawson
Rich Ulrich wrote: Construing the language as precisely as possible, but being careful to take into account the full language of the question and the multiple-choice answers, what do you think the correct answer is? Do you think the question is actually OK? Is the wording good enough as

Re: AW: MA MCAS statistical fallacy

2001-01-16 Thread Jerry Dallal
Werner Wittmann wrote: See the regression artifact primer at Dave's homepage: http://nw3.nai.net/~dakenny/rrtm.htm I looked at http://nw3.nai.net/~dakenny/primer.htm and found myself puzzled by the Galton squeeze plot (or is it a pair link diagram, or are they one and the same?). It shows

Re: MA MCAS statistical fallacy

2001-01-16 Thread dennis roberts
At 11:33 AM 1/16/01 -0400, you wrote: 37. When Matt's and Damien's broad jumps were measured accurately to the nearest foot, each measurement was 21 feet. Which statement best describes the greatest possible difference in the lengths of Matts jump and Damien's jump? A. One jump could be

Re: MA MCAS statistical fallacy

2001-01-13 Thread Herman Rubin
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], J. Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Francis Galton explained it in 1885. Possibly, the Mass. Dept. of Education missed it! Or, could it be that the same gang who brought us the exit poll data during the November election were helping them out? :-) I am wondering

Re: MA MCAS statistical fallacy

2001-01-13 Thread Herman Rubin
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], Richard A. Beldin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In one way or another, we have to give the slower students more time. We can do it by making courses which allow students to progress (or not) at their own pace or by flunking them so they can do it all over. The former is

Re: MCAS

2001-01-12 Thread Thom Baguley
Alan Zaslavsky wrote: There is a big statistical literature on how to measure school performance. The models used tend to be relatively complex ones, e.g., multilevel models to take account of region, school, year and so on. The sad thing here is that (whatever the main cause or causes) they are

Re: MA MCAS statistical fallacy

2001-01-12 Thread Richard A. Beldin
This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --A0316B6769484E5B80B17052 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In one way or another, we have to give the slower students more time. We can do it by making courses which allow students to progress (or

Re: MA MCAS statistical fallacy

2001-01-12 Thread Gene Gallagher
was hoping for (a mean 2 point improvement). Rather than reporting that the mean had improved, this Dept. of Education report emphasizes failure. Schools in this high category were expected to improve by 2 points on the 200 to 280 point MCAS scale. A high performing school might have an overall sc

Re: MA MCAS statistical fallacy

2001-01-12 Thread Eric Bohlman
Robert J. MacG. Dawson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Therefore, I would not expect regression to the mean to be sufficient to explain the observed outcome (in which "practically no" top schools met expectations); and I conclude that the goals may well have been otherwise unreasonable.

mcas

2001-01-12 Thread Paul R Swank
it over one that they preferred because the content was closer to that being tested with the MCAS. He said that their previous model was that earth sciences were dealt with in a unified package in one year, followed by the life sciences in the years before and after. However, the MCAS tests both

Re: MA MCAS statistical fallacy

2001-01-12 Thread Robert J. MacG. Dawson
The school results are presented in a very odd fashion, making it difficult to assess the patterns. http://www.doe.mass.edu/ata/ratings00/SPRPDistribTables.html They are that. Let's try. These data don't look at all like the newspaper story. Here they are, with outcomes given as

Re: MA MCAS statistical fallacy

2001-01-12 Thread Robert J. MacG. Dawson
In my last posting I omitted the "very high" group on the grounds of small size. In case anybody's curious, here's what the plot looks like with those data included (coded as "*"; note that the vertical "error bars" on these would be very wide!) Proportion of schools improved by fewer

Re: mcas

2001-01-12 Thread dennis roberts
At 11:42 AM 1/12/01 -0600, Paul R Swank wrote: snip The local schools are already being forced to teach to the test. AH HA ... THE TEXAS PLAN = Instructions for joining and leaving this list and remarks about the problem of

Re: MA MCAS statistical fallacy

2001-01-12 Thread Gene Gallagher
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Robert J. MacG. Dawson) wrote: The school results are presented in a very odd fashion, making it difficult to assess the patterns. http://www.doe.mass.edu/ata/ratings00/SPRPDistribTables.html They are that. Let's try. These data

AW: MA MCAS statistical fallacy

2001-01-12 Thread Werner Wittmann
von dennis roberts Gesendet: Freitag, 12. Januar 2001 15:54 An: Gene Gallagher; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Betreff: Re: MA MCAS statistical fallacy At 01:12 PM 1/12/01 +, Gene Gallagher wrote: I do believe that regression to the mean is involved here. i just reiterate that regression in this case

Re: MA MCAS statistical fallacy

2001-01-11 Thread Robert J. MacG. Dawson
Gene Gallagher wrote: Those familiar with "regression to the mean" know what's coming next. The poor schools, many in urban centers like Boston, met their ^ improvement "targets," while most of the state's top school districts failed to

Re: MA MCAS statistical fallacy

2001-01-11 Thread Robert J. MacG. Dawson
A couple additional thoghts I didn't get around to before leaving for my 8:30 lecture: (1) The clearest way of looking at the stats side of things is probably that one would expect a high enough r^2 between schools' performances in one year and in the next that regression to the

Re: MA MCAS statistical fallacy

2001-01-11 Thread J. Williams
for the millions of dollars, thousands of hours of work, and thousands of students' lives that could be affected. Massachusetts has implemented a state-wide mandatory student testing program, called the MCAS. Students in the 4th, 8th and 10th grades are being tested and next year 12th grade students

Re: MA MCAS statistical fallacy

2001-01-11 Thread Paul R Swank
Regression toward the mean occurs when the pretest is used to form the groups, which it appears is the case here. At 08:31 AM 1/11/01 -0400, you wrote: > > >Gene Gallagher wrote: >> >> Those familiar with "regression to the mean" know what's coming next. >> The poor schools, many in urban

Re: MA MCAS statistical fallacy

2001-01-11 Thread dennis roberts
... then regression to the mean is not the bugaboo that the "letter" makes it out to be now, the post said: The effectiveness of school districts is being assessed using average student MCAS scores. Based on the 1998 MCAS scores, districts were placed in one of 6 categories: very high, high, moderate,

Re: MA MCAS statistical fallacy

2001-01-11 Thread dennis roberts
i went to some of the sites given in the urls ... and, quite frankly, it is kind of difficult to really get a feel for what has transpired ... and how targets were set ... and how goals were assessed regardless of whether we like this kind of an approach for accountability ... or not ... we

MCAS

2001-01-11 Thread Alan Zaslavsky
Dear Gene, I share your feelings about MCAS (fortunately my daughter finished high school before it came into effect, but that's no consolation for the thousands of other kids who are supposed to be deprived of their high school diplomas), and had some similar reactions to the article

Re: MA MCAS statistical fallacy

2001-01-11 Thread Paul R Swank
Robert: Why would you expect a strong correlation here? You're talking about tests done a year apart with some new kids in each school and some kids who have moved on. Is regression toward the mean causing all of the noted results. Probably not. But it is quite conceivable that it could be

Re: MA MCAS statistical fallacy

2001-01-11 Thread Rich Ulrich
met by becoming only a little worse. If you are dumping money into the whole system, then you might hope to (expect to?) bias the changes into a positive direction. I thought it was curious that the "schools in the highest two categories were expected to increase their average MCAS score

Re: MA MCAS statistical fallacy

2001-01-11 Thread Ronald Bloom
Herman Rubin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], J. Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Francis Galton explained it in 1885. Possibly, the Mass. Dept. of Education missed it! Or, could it be that the same gang who brought us the exit poll data during the November election

MA MCAS statistical fallacy

2001-01-10 Thread Gene Gallagher
mandatory student testing program, called the MCAS. Students in the 4th, 8th and 10th grades are being tested and next year 12th grade students must pass the MCAS to graduate. The effectiveness of school districts is being assessed using average student MCAS scores. Based on the 1998 MCAS scores