Standard Tests And Bias

[laughing dog]

Of course, students who do not go to college are not included in a sample for study about success in college. It is moronic to claim that they ought to be included, regardless of the quality of the high school.

You once again cover your eyes to the obvious: The sample is distorted because the students who got a high GPA but low ACT didn't get into college in the first place. This is like putting a doctor on top of a mountain and having him do EKGs and concluding heart disease isn't a problem because he never sees it.

See my comments in post 39 which carefully show why your point is inane.

There are institutions that see it as a way to discriminate without appearing to do so.

I realize you feel this is true, but that does not make it true. What evidence that exists outside of your mind do you have to support your claim?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

See my comments in post 39 which carefully show why your point is inane.

There are institutions that see it as a way to discriminate without appearing to do so.

I realize you feel this is true, but that does not make it true. What evidence that exists outside of your mind do you have to support your claim?

Pointing back to your post doesn't make it so.

The study you presented doesn't consider the big fish in the little pond problem.

 

[ZiprHead]

See my comments in post 39 which carefully show why your point is inane.

There are institutions that see it as a way to discriminate without appearing to do so.

I realize you feel this is true, but that does not make it true. What evidence that exists outside of your mind do you have to support your claim?

Pointing back to your post doesn't make it so.

The study you presented doesn't consider the big fish in the little pond problem.

What exactly is this "big fish in the little pond problem"?

 

[laughing dog]

See my comments in post 39 which carefully show why your point is inane.

There are institutions that see it as a way to discriminate without appearing to do so.

I realize you feel this is true, but that does not make it true. What evidence that exists outside of your mind do you have to support your claim?

Pointing back to your post doesn't make it so.

The study you presented doesn't consider the big fish in the little pond problem.

You have no evidence to support your claim. Frankly I think no knows what
"Pointing back to your posts doesn't make it so" means since it is not specified. And as Ziprhead pointed out, what is the big fish in the little pond problem that you believe is not considered?

 

[steve_bank]

Despite what others may say, the US is also a monculture. But even if you don't accept that, the argument that standardized tests are bias is bullshit. When the tests are offered to low income people, those who lack wealth but are otherwise talented reveal themselves. Standardized tests are the great equalizer.

Wealthy families may offer greater support for their offspring through private tuition and motivation to succeed, hence a better chance of becoming doctors, lawyers, CEO's, etc. Wealth buys advantage.

It pays to be born rich: Children with wealthy parents are MORE likely to be successful than intellectually gifted kids born to low-income families

''A new study has found a link between intelligence and genetics and used that metric to better understand how it affects outcomes for rich and poor families

The findings challenge traditional notions that America is a place where people succeed or fail based on their inherent merit and, or willingness to work hard

Researchers found that intellectual gifts are fairly evenly distributed among the rich and poor, however eventual success is heavily weighted in favor of the rich

Less than a quarter (24 percent) of high-potential people born to low-income fathers graduated from college, compared to 63 percent born to rich fathers

Researchers said that children raised in wealthy homes may benefit from early education interventions, better diets and parents who read to them regularly.''

The problem here is that three things are inherited:

Intelligence
Money
Attitudes

Your study is comparing the first two without considering the third.

I agree strongly inherited family attitudes are important. Enough to override other issues.

 

[DBT]

Despite what others may say, the US is also a monculture. But even if you don't accept that, the argument that standardized tests are bias is bullshit. When the tests are offered to low income people, those who lack wealth but are otherwise talented reveal themselves. Standardized tests are the great equalizer.

Wealthy families may offer greater support for their offspring through private tuition and motivation to succeed, hence a better chance of becoming doctors, lawyers, CEO's, etc. Wealth buys advantage.

It pays to be born rich: Children with wealthy parents are MORE likely to be successful than intellectually gifted kids born to low-income families

''A new study has found a link between intelligence and genetics and used that metric to better understand how it affects outcomes for rich and poor families

The findings challenge traditional notions that America is a place where people succeed or fail based on their inherent merit and, or willingness to work hard

Researchers found that intellectual gifts are fairly evenly distributed among the rich and poor, however eventual success is heavily weighted in favor of the rich

Less than a quarter (24 percent) of high-potential people born to low-income fathers graduated from college, compared to 63 percent born to rich fathers

Researchers said that children raised in wealthy homes may benefit from early education interventions, better diets and parents who read to them regularly.''

The problem here is that three things are inherited:

Intelligence
Money
Attitudes

Your study is comparing the first two without considering the third.

The problem here is the third is essentially inseparable from the others. A poverty trap can be depressing, Intelligence a feature of both genes and environment, The encouragement and support of family wealth enables self esteem, confidence, grooming, etc. Your objections are overly simplistic.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

the solutions:

There should be more testing, not less.

The tests themselves should be tested, or all the test items should be scrutinized to ensure that they perform their (culturally neutral) function of objectively measuring each student's mastery of the subject matter. And those creating the tests have to be corrected for their bad decisions in shaping the test items.

Education opportunities ideally should be open to all seeking to enter, with no limits to the number of students admitted, so there's no need to exclude anyone, by testing or any other barrier. And all the students in a program should be tested and advanced further according to their performance on the tests, with no sympathy to anyone performing poorly, other than to drive them to improve their performance on future tests.

Improving the integrity of the tests is the correct solution to anything wrong in the testing system, while reducing the testing is always the wrong solution.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

steve_bnk and Loren are right. Attitude also plays a role in academic and financial success. Take a look at Donald Trump, for example. His whole family has inherited the same attitude. That's anecdotal so here's a study:

The notion that high levels of psychopathic trait leads to career success in the business sector has become a popular point of theorising in recent years, with research providing support for the alleged overrepresentation of psychopathy in the financial sector, and the existence of a relationship between psychopathy and professional success. A cross-sectional design was employed to compare psychopathy scores of business and psychology students, as well as to examine the psychopathy-academic success relationship. Participates were 263 participants recruited from a UK university. Results revealed greater psychopathic traits in business students relative to psychology students on all four factors of psychopathy. Furthermore, hierarchical multiple regression indicated that the four psychopathy factors, gender, age, study hours, and course explain 14% of variance in grade outcome. Two variables made unique statistic contributions to the model with Antisocial Behaviour and gender (male) negatively related to grade outcome. Theoretical and practical implications of our findings are discussed.

https://www.researchgate.net/public...ts_and_their_Relationship_to_Academic_Success

 

[prideandfall]

The tests themselves should be tested, or all the test items should be scrutinized to ensure that they perform their (culturally neutral) function of objectively measuring each student's mastery of the subject matter.

the problem is that this is impossible - the only thing a test can ever measure is your mastery of taking the test, but it's almost completely unrelated to mastery of the subject that the test is about.

the problem is that people are stupid enough to think that one's ability to master a test is the same thing as one's ability to master the thing the test is about, and that has lead to a huge number of problems in US culture when it comes to notions of intelligence and career preparedness.

the population needs to understand that testing only tests one's ability to test, and if that's the data point we're going to use to judge people fine, but stop pretending like taking a test is analogous to understanding the material.

 

[bilby]

the solutions:

There should be more testing, not less.

The tests themselves should be tested, or all the test items should be scrutinized to ensure that they perform their (culturally neutral) function of objectively measuring each student's mastery of the subject matter. And those creating the tests have to be corrected for their bad decisions in shaping the test items.

Education opportunities ideally should be open to all seeking to enter, with no limits to the number of students admitted, so there's no need to exclude anyone, by testing or any other barrier. And all the students in a program should be tested and advanced further according to their performance on the tests, with no sympathy to anyone performing poorly, other than to drive them to improve their performance on future tests.

Improving the integrity of the tests is the correct solution to anything wrong in the testing system, while reducing the testing is always the wrong solution.

Which is why, when fattening hogs, the farmers don't waste too much precious time feeding them, they just weigh them as often and as accurately as possible.

Good test results are not (or at least, should not be) the objective of education. The objective is for people to know stuff and/or have skills at the end of the process, that they didn't have at the beginning. Tests can give, at best, a very crude idea of the knowledge and/or skills that a person has at the end of the process, but tell you nothing about whether the education was responsible for imparting those skills or knowledge. And testing is rarely at its best - typically they measure a tiny subset of the subject matter, and assume that a student who knows that stuff on test day will know the entire subject equally well in a year's time. Neither assumption (scope nor duration) is likely to be true.

 

[Trausti]

The problem here is that three things are inherited:

Intelligence
Money
Attitudes

Your study is comparing the first two without considering the third.

The problem here is the third is essentially inseparable from the others. A poverty trap can be depressing, Intelligence a feature of both genes and environment, The encouragement and support of family wealth enables self esteem, confidence, grooming, etc. Your objections are overly simplistic.

You don’t need wealth to be a good parent. It costs nothing to read to your children and make sure they did their homework.

 

[DBT]

The problem here is that three things are inherited:

Intelligence
Money
Attitudes

Your study is comparing the first two without considering the third.

The problem here is the third is essentially inseparable from the others. A poverty trap can be depressing, Intelligence a feature of both genes and environment, The encouragement and support of family wealth enables self esteem, confidence, grooming, etc. Your objections are overly simplistic.

You don’t need wealth to be a good parent. It costs nothing to read to your children and make sure they did their homework.

While working long hours, perhaps needing two jobs to make ends meet? Not being able to afford help send them through Uni in any case. You miss the point.

 

[Trausti]

You don’t need wealth to be a good parent. It costs nothing to read to your children and make sure they did their homework.

While working long hours, perhaps needing two jobs to make ends meet? You miss the point.

If you have time for Netflix, you have time to read to your child.

 

[DBT]

You don’t need wealth to be a good parent. It costs nothing to read to your children and make sure they did their homework.

While working long hours, perhaps needing two jobs to make ends meet? You miss the point.

If you have time for Netflix, you have time to read to your child.

Being poor but reading to your children may not be enough. Statistics bear that out.

 

[Trausti]

If you have time for Netflix, you have time to read to your child.

Being poor but reading to your children may not be enough. Statistics bear that out.

Then it’s not wealth that matters. It’s the parents. The amount of parental time investment in a child is a choice. The parent decides what attention to give to the child. What makes some parents invest more time - at the expense of the parents’ time - than others? It’s not how much money is in the bank account.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Just hire a nanny to read to the kid. Plus, you can get some side action.

 

[DBT]

If you have time for Netflix, you have time to read to your child.

Being poor but reading to your children may not be enough. Statistics bear that out.

Then it’s not wealth that matters. It’s the parents. The amount of parental time investment in a child is a choice. The parent decides what attention to give to the child. What makes some parents invest more time - at the expense of the parents’ time - than others? It’s not how much money is in the bank account.

Attention from parents may not be enough. The rich hire tutors, provide financial support, status, a sense self esteem, etc.

Putting that aside, you appear to assume that working class people do not give their children enough attention and that is why they don't all become doctors or lawyers....but is that really the case?

Can you support your claim? That working class people are not attending to their children's educational needs and it is this that holds them back?

 

[Trausti]

Then it’s not wealth that matters. It’s the parents. The amount of parental time investment in a child is a choice. The parent decides what attention to give to the child. What makes some parents invest more time - at the expense of the parents’ time - than others? It’s not how much money is in the bank account.

Attention from parents may not be enough. You appear to assume that working class people do not give their children enough attention and that is why they don't all become doctors or lawyers....but is that really the case?

Can you support your claim? That working class people are not attending to their children's educational needs and it is this that holds them back?

My point is that wealth is not the issue. Working class people certainly can and should give attention to their children.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Working class people certainly can and should give attention to their children.

So they should pay for educational opportunities they cannot afford. That makes sense.

 

[DBT]

Then it’s not wealth that matters. It’s the parents. The amount of parental time investment in a child is a choice. The parent decides what attention to give to the child. What makes some parents invest more time - at the expense of the parents’ time - than others? It’s not how much money is in the bank account.

Attention from parents may not be enough. You appear to assume that working class people do not give their children enough attention and that is why they don't all become doctors or lawyers....but is that really the case?

Can you support your claim? That working class people are not attending to their children's educational needs and it is this that holds them back?

My point is that wealth is not the issue. Working class people certainly can and should give attention to their children.

Are you saying they don't? That because they don't, that is the cause of the disparity between the rich and the poor?