The Galloping Beaver
How much lower could they set the bar though? 4 or 5 correct?
I wonder if the bar has ever been any higher. Like 6 or 7 maybe.
Remember, it's only 5 questions for the 1989 to 2006 comparison -- the ones that didn't change between the 2 years. The main survey was 23 questions.
I know Laura. I did the survey. It's linked.
My point is that of all the stats available out of this they chose in the presser to emphasize the category of 4 or 5, not 7 or 8 or 9 or 10 or even 18 or 19.
They chose a really low number as a point of focus when they could have chosen any number or set of numbers.
That they've been using that category over a number of years isn't a justification for continuing to use it - it's a rationalization for continuing to induce low expecations.
It reminds me of an upward evaluation study I worked on a number of years ago for a large corporate client.
I found a significant problem with the methodology and brought it to the study director. I was told that the problem had been known about for years but since the study was tracked over years the problem was just ignored. I asked if that didn't just result in a long term tainted study. The answer was yes and so what?
That's how this feels to me.
Just glancing over this, I tend to agree with you Dana. Without data from additional studies between 89 and 07, it is impossible to determine if the numbers vary across a range from year to year. Not enough data to determine any trend - it;s just a survey.
Interesting this came up now. Michael Enright on CBC tonight had a sociologist from U of Western Ontario flogging his new book,
http://www.amazon.ca/Ivory-Tower...76778956&sr=1-
1
discussing the idea that undergrad grades were being padded. Apparently evidenced by things like Bs replacing Cs as the new avg grade, and prof fear of student evaluations creating an incentive to award artificially high marks. I didn't catch all of it, so I may have missed a few things.
I'm always amazed by how little current affairs knowledge Americans have. Still, according to the report, 10% of respondents got at least 20 of the 23 questions right, and some of the questions were stuff you'd have to actually follow the news to know about, like whether the minimum wage bill had passed both houses of Congress. People just don't remember -- even my hyper-political flatmate had to think about that one for a minute.
As for the education stuff, yeah you're right Boris that focussing on 5 questions across 17 years doesn't tell you all that much. But I expect it gives you a basic idea of how knowledge is changing, and that more education isn't making us better informed. It's a bit alarming that with all the news available now, some people are obviously not touched by it at all (or are adversely affected, like the Fox viewers in the survey).
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with every moment, with every breath of every day".
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