Subject:
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Re: Rush: "Lego is a Tool for 4 year olds"
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 2 Feb 2000 20:14:24 GMT
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Viewed:
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554 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Scott Edward Sanburn writes:
> 1) If this LEGO test to determine different skills was one of the
> factors to determine certain characteristics that the colleges want,
> fine.
Umm... I think that was the point! That colleges are looking for people with
leadership, teamwork skills, creativity, etc., and that traditional testing
doesn't seem to show this ability in people, so they're looking in to new ways
to test for these qualities. For years, it's been done with things like a
letter of recommendation from a teacher, an essay, and/or a personal interview
with the college applicant. What it seems to me like they're doing is seeing if
they can start getting a more quantitative handle on something that heretofore
has been more-or-less 100% qualitative (that being these 'special skills' in
question)
I think what colleges WANT is a good mix of both these special skills AND
things like the standard test-taking skills, and this test is attempting to be
a way to help in locating the former in potential students.
> However, based on the the two articles that were posted, these
> weren't for all, they were only for minorities, because they weren't
> qualified otherwise. This is a sidestep to recent rulings on affirmative
> action, which has been in the courts and is unconstitutional,
> discriminating against anyone, including white people, is wrong. This is
> what Rush was saying, and I agree with that. If you want to talk about
> affirmative action, that is another debate, and I won't be joining it,
> for I think it is wrong.
Hmmm... you say 'minorities' and refer to affirmative action, hence I'm
assuming that you're implying that the people being used for the test are
minorities in terms of their ethnicity? That MIGHT have something to do with
affirmative action, except that it sounds as if it were not the case. It was
apparantly left to chance-- the applicants were only selected because they
didn't score well using conventional methods, and assumedly because they showed
promise in other areas, and just didn't "test well". I could be wrong, but
that's the jist I got from the article. I don't think it has a single thing
whatsoever in any way to do with affirmative action, etc. But you're saying
it's only wrong insofar as it appears to be only helping minorities?
I think the greater danger that perhaps could be what you're saying (maybe you
and Rush mean it but aren't saying it) is that these people who don't test well
are suddenly being given another chance, and that potentially they don't
deserve that chance-- I.E. that a certain number of these people are 100%
guaranteed to get into a college that would have rejected them otherwise
INSTEAD of the people that "really" deserve it (based on SAT scores, etc).
In other words, let's say Happy College accepts 1000 applicants a year.
Normally, all 1000 of them have to achieve over X percent on their SAT's, etc.
But THIS year, 100 people are being tested using the "Lego" technique, and the
'bottom' 100 of the normally accepted 1000 are being rejected, even though they
SHOULD qualify, and THEY'RE not even being given the CHANCE to take the "Lego"
test. In essence, that not 100% of all the applicants are being judged on the
same scale, and that as a result, some people are suffering.
But assuming that this is not the case, and that THIS year, 1100 applicants are
being accepted, it's not really hurting anyone-- it really is just giving these
extra 100 a chance and seeing how they do. You COULD argue the nitpickity
argument and say that the other 1000 are being hurt by bringing down attention
time from professors, needing to pay extra tuition since the 100 are assumedly
there on scholorship, etc, but IMHO that's not really the issue at hand. I
don't think that has anything to do with it.
Anyway, the real issue I think is making sure to judge everyone by the same
standards. If I were conducting the experiment, I would NEVER have limited
myself to ONLY students who score low on SAT's, etc. That's plain dumb. It
assumes that we know how the high scoring SAT takers would do in the "Lego"
test. Or, to be more specific, it assumes NOTHING about them. By restricting
the test to only low-end test takers, they've left out the vital "control
group" from the situation. It's a badly formed experiment.
For example, let's say that hypothetically all the people who do well on their
SAT's etc ALL do better than the people that DON'T do well on SAT's etc-- then
we've only proven that the test is no better than the SAT's to begin with. Of
course I don't think that's at all likely. I think that in general, the results
of the "Lego" tests would vary a lot (being that they show more personality
traits) between good test takers and bad test takers. What the colleges REALLY
ought to know in that case is how valuable these personality traits are to
them, and in the real world, vs. the "test-taking" traits that we usually think
of colleges going by.
The long and the short of it is it's just a test. That's what it's for. If it
works, GREAT! (I'd LOVE helping my future kids get ready for college if that's
the case!) If it doesn't work, oh well. And as to theories as to whether or not
it will work well, THAT'S the real tangent, I think-- DO these qualities REALLY
matter in college or not? Not to get into it (at least not yet), I think that
it SHOULD matter, but it doesn't really at present. Again, I think Bial's
methods are questionable-- she's going to follow up on the students through
their college career, not through their job-career... if they don't do well in
high school, I don't think they'll do well in college... it's a lot of the same
things all over again (with occasional exceptions)... it's not until they hit
the job market that they'll see how well the person really does in life. And
that's what college SHOULD prepare you for... but that's another story...
My lengthy $.02,
DaveE
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Rush: "Lego is a Tool for 4 year olds"
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| To All, OK, folks, since nobody got the ideas posting on this subject, especially from me, let's see if I can clear this up: 1) If this LEGO test to determine different skills was one of the factors to determine certain characteristics that the (...) (24 years ago, 2-Feb-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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