Nonlinear Psychometric Thresholds for Physics and Mathematics

calmom
Sun, 01 Jan 2012 16:35:52 +0000

I do want to point out that there is another, very different way, to interpret the data presented in the first report. It could be interpreted simply as evidence that the faculty in the math & physics department at University of Oregon are doing a poor job of teaching their students. The top students coming in tend to do well despite the poor quality of the teaching, but the weaker student do not get the support or quality of instruction that they need, so they are unable to do well. I’d note that the data & graphs showed some under-600 SAT students doing ok in individual, introductory classes – but the strong performance wasn’t sustained over the series of upper level classes required for the major. The authors of the study interpreted that as a weakness among the students… but someone who believes that it is the job of a university to teach might see that as a failing on the part of the faculty.

You would need data from other with a similar statistical array of incoming students to figure out the answer to that question – perhaps a CTCL college or a study that includes [NSSE data](http://nsse.iub.edu/).

I mean, I started out colleges as a STEM major but changed after the first semester. The reason I shifted majors wasn’t because I couldn’t do the work – it was because of the poor quality of teaching (huge class, weak lecturer) and the fact that most of the TA’s, mine included, did not speak English.

Sylvan’s story is a good illustration of the potential that exists in students who with weak entrance scores. There is no way to sort out whether a weak score indicates lack of potential or lack of opportunity unless there is an effort to fill the opportunity gap. A university department that is not able to serve the needs of at least some students entering with weaker scores may be a department that is not only failing to meet the needs of individual students, but one that is perpetuating discrimination among certain classes of students.

I mean - do you remember the movie Stand and Deliver about the high school calculus teacher [Jaime Escalante](Jaime Escalante - Wikipedia) It has already been demonstrated anecdotally that a good teacher can enable poor performing students to succeed in learning higher math – so the real question university faculty should be asking is how they can improve the quality of their own programs and teaching.

Or, to put it another way, the stats from all other department show that while SAT scores have some predictive influence, there are always students who break the pattern and do well despite entering with weak scores. Perhaps the math & physics profs at U of Oregon should be looking at their numbers as a failure to do the job of teaching as well as the profs in all the other departments.