\doc\web\99\03\study.txt Date forwarded: Thu, 11 Feb 1999 16:02:11 -0500 (EST) Date sent: Thu, 11 Feb 1999 16:08:38 -0500 From: Gavan Tredoux To: upstream-list@cycad.com boundary="------------12172B7B0D06022099D2D453" Subject: [Upstream] Study Habits = success Forwarded by: upstream-list@cycad.com Send reply to: upstream-list@cycad.com The idea that study habits/teaching methods will turn the black/white/Asian gap in academic performance around just won't go away. This is expected if you don't believe in heritability and you think race isn't real - the explanation must then lie somewhere else, like "study habits". Of course, one may ask straight away how it is that groups come to have different "study habits" and whether this is not just a proxy measure for IQ itself. Needless to say, few journalists (or even academics) have the wit to ask this. Moving on to the habits, I have never seen much data on study habits drawn from representative samples. It is especially silly to draw that sort of conclusion by studying just one (clearly charismatic) teacher and his students. The "study habit" of solving math problems in groups is an old education reform idea, evoking the fond hope that kids will learn math from one another. This is hard to swallow. While kids are reasonably good at teaching each other bad language, don't expect them to teach much math. The dynamics of such a group should be easy to predict - the weak kids will coast on the effort of others, the smart kids will get bored quickly by being forced to work at the pace of the slow kids, and the mediocre kids will do much the same. And since whites certainly don't work in groups, why are they doing better than blacks? The unexplored dimension of these miracle teachers is self-selection: to what extent to kids choose to be in their classes, or get drawn toward them? It's possible that these teachers are simply attracting far better students by dint of their reputation. And how long do these effects last? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-02/08/080l-020899-idx.html Date forwarded: Thu, 11 Feb 1999 16:30:27 -0500 (EST) Date sent: Thu, 11 Feb 1999 16:25:30 -0500 From: "Louis R. Andrews" Send reply to: LRAnd@groupz.net Organization: Stalking the Wild Taboo - http://www.lrainc.com/swtaboo/ To: upstream-list@cycad.com Subject: Re: [Upstream] Study Habits = success Forwarded by: upstream-list@cycad.com Gavan wrote: > The "study habit" of solving math problems in groups is an old > education reform idea, evoking the fond hope that kids will > learn math from one another. This is hard to swallow. While > kids are reasonably good at teaching each other bad language, > don't expect them to teach much math. The dynamics of such > a group should be easy to predict - the weak kids will coast > on the effort of others, the smart kids will get bored quickly by being > forced to work at the pace of the slow kids, and the mediocre kids will > do much the same. And since whites certainly don't work in groups, why > are they doing better than blacks? Indeed. This entire issue is addressed very well by Robert A. Gordon in his important article "Everyday Life as an Intelligence Test," which is in the Jan-Feb 1997 issue of _Intelligence_ (pp. 203-320). In the section entitled "The Level of the Local Interpersonal Context of the Individual in Everyday Life," beginning on page 220 he talks about such interpersonal helping relationships and the problems raised by the "norm of reciprocity." On page 226, he addresses the both the overall and individual impact on college students of learning groups consisting of low, medium, and high ability groups which were mixed in all possible combinations and alone. General results. 1. First try lead to an improvement in scores 2. Second try the medium and high ability students did slightly better working alone, than with a lower skilled student (still well above the pop mean). 3. "Clearly, the medium and high ability groups alreeady possessed virtually all the informationand problem-solving ability that members had to contribute to the task. Among members of all three groups, reciprocity in needed cognitive help in most everyday matters would be virtually impossible to achieve." 4. Other studies he addresses show that "pupils preferred to exchange help with partners of similar achievement level... helping relationships tended to divide along racial lines, although everyone cooperated well enough with one another in matters unrelated to coursework." The world is a little more complex than Raspberry thinks. Louis --- This is a message from the Upstream mailing list. 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