Re: Testing job applicants

[mww@merant.com (Michael Wojcik)]

[Followups set to a.f.c.  Crossposting is evil.]

In article <ivddr7.q8o1.ln@predator>, hmv@port.ac.uk (Mike Meredith at home) writes:
> 
> In article <37da472f.1121462@news.netcomuk.co.uk>,
> 	z80@ds1.com (Peter) writes:
> > 
> > I happen to know a number of teachers, school, college and university
> > ones, who have all been in the business for many years, who *all*
> > agree that standards are falling.
> 
> I also happen to know quite a few University lecturers (I do work
> at a University), and they don't *all* agree that standards are
> dropping.

I happen to have been a University lecturer only a few years ago
(didn't like it, and it didn't leave much time for programming, so
I dropped it).  And my partner is a professor, and we know many
other professors.  And they're not convinced of this purported
phenomenon either.  Now, we're in the US, not the UK; perhaps the
situation's different there, but I haven't seen anyone provide
any evidence to that effect yet.

What's more, I haven't seen anything like a real argument that
"standards" (a term which has thus far gone undefined) in school
have anything to do with performance after school.  Frankly, I
think most grading systems aren't worth the paper they consume.
I test well, much better than most of my peers (better than 99%
of graduate-school-bound college juniors and seniors, to judge
from my GRE scores).  I don't believe I'm "smarter" than 99%
of them, if "smarter" means anything useful.  (I'm not convinced
it does.)

> And personally, the ratio of totally clueless students to very
> bright students I meet electronically hasn't changed over the
> last 10 years.

I agree, with the exception of substituting "in person" for
"electronically".

> I haven't got any evidence (other than personal experience, which
> doesn't really count), and I'm not going to bother hunting any
> down.

I haven't seen anyone produce any yet.

> You're an 18-year old who has just spent 2 years working like
> crazy on you're A-levels, and you get some good results. And what
> happens when you turn on the TV ? Every old fart under the sun is
> claiming that standards are falling, and that A-levels aren't
> what they used to be. Nice way for society to congratulate you on
> your achievement, even if standards *are* falling.

And old farts have been claiming this for all of recorded history.
Somewhere I have an amusing diatribe written by an Egyptian scribe
a few millenia ago bemoaning the ignorance and ill manners of the
young...

It does get damned tiresome listening to armchair intellectuals
complain about the scholarly failings of the current generation.
Teaching and the teaching industry are complicated subjects, just
like programming or any other discipline.  Why so many people seem to
think they can safely generalize from a couple of data points (often
only glimpsed in passing, and rarely studied in any rigorous way) is
beyond me.


--
Michael Wojcik          	        michael.wojcik@merant.com
AAI Development, MERANT                 (block capitals are a company mandate)
Department of English, Miami University

Shakespeare writes bombast and knows it; Mr Thomas writes bombast and
doesn't.  That is the difference.
   -- Geoffrey Johnson