Students entering the ed major have the lowest SAT scores yet still come out of the major with the highest grades.
Interesting statement. Kindly post the unimpeachable source for this data or, better yet, the data itself. Thanks.
I had been reading an article which included a reference to this study.
And, after a quick perusal of the linked paper, may I enquire as to your thoughts on the author's work? What math I saw seemed reasonable, given my absence from the science field for a few years in my retirement. I may have missed something. Based on his "observation" of the gathered data, his conclusions appeared reasonable. Did I miss something?
Yes, am thinking that you did. But, a reasonable miss.
Yes,
mathman – I will accede to your request. For more than one reason, I hesitated before doing this. Such exercise has become boringly toilsome - dregs from a previous life.
While I have no quarrel with the actual calculations presented in the study/paper by Cory Koedel (June 2011), certain design aspects and fundamental assumptions are very limiting. These are limiting to the point that this work, in and of itself, is nowhere near sufficient to support that blanket statement posted here by our friend
mathman.
Koedel’s paper may be quite useful for anecdotal purposes or for examination of more discrete factors of influence in the three universities studied. However, the alleged “findings” about reasons for GPA differentials have the appearance of a flimsy skeleton developed to support a stated main feature of the work, which is to “predict” outcomes associated with delivery of education in K-12 school settings. (Please note Section III, Potential Implications of the Low Grading Standards in Education Departments).
Here are but a few factors that lead to the above assessment.
The study and real data is limited to just three institutions of higher ed from among the 4000+ in the US.
The “data” on SAT scores of entering education majors is “available evidence” from a single paper published elsewhere 11 years ago. (Page 6) and I have no idea about the scope or veracity of that one – and am not going to read it.
The real meat of the discrepancy in this one is that the author starts with a pre-conceived notion – an assumption – and it is one not borne out by the data and evidence. The author states on page 2 that:
The primary purpose of this paper is to highlight the magnitude of the current grading-standards discrepancy between education and non-education departments. NOTICE – the author does not say “grades”, which is the actual data – but adds the term “standards”, which is a presumptive finding, apparently intended to serve other purposes.
The author reveals the primarily speculative bases for the findings in the capsule explanation at the beginning of the paper. This statement notes that the conclusion regarding “low grading standards” in education courses is a speculative default position – a generally unsupported finding which, itself, is assumed because two other self-identified factors are eliminated by calculations and subjective actions within.
Exemplary of the above, the actual data shows that average class sizes in education courses were notably smaller than class sizes in other disciplines cited, and the author states:
“Perhaps not surprisingly, 1is negative and statistically significant in all three regressions, which means that smaller classes are indeed associated with higher grades.” Yet, the author eventually chooses to “suggest” that this class size factor is not causal for higher GPA averages.
The author’s actual statement is:
“The higher grades awarded by education departments cannot be explained by differences in student quality or by structural differences across departments (i.e., differences in class sizes). The remaining explanation is that the higher grades are the result of lower grading standards.” (That is default speculation). In the paper on page 1, the author says it simply with no supporting data - anywhere:
“The likely explanation is grade inflation.” (Truly scientific – data supported - and academic?)
One could go on and on – there is quite a bit more. I do not enjoy this stuff very much anymore.
