5 ms·

I've read this paper in the past. Like many papers, it has some powerful results, but I think it overclaims on correlation vs causation. What is true is teache

I've read this paper in the past. Like many papers, it has some powerful results, but I think it overclaims on correlation vs causation. What is true is teachers overrate girl's performance earlier in school compared to boys, then girls catch up and overtake, often approaching their teacher's predictions. This might well be a case of matching expectations. Another, to me reasonable, explanation for the results is that teacher's grading includes potential, based on their experience. It's hard to know, and would be very hard to ethically test. This area deserves more research, and less sgouty arguments, but there isn't a clear cut answer.

grayhatter 6y ago
I remember reading a study that asserted the best predictor of success is if your teacher believes you're capable. Teachers were told a group of students we're 'gifted' and those students ended up improving more than their peers. Unfortunately, all students were randomly assigned to either the gifted, or non-gifted groups. Actually being brilliant is much less important than if someone believes in you.
- im3w1l 6y ago
  > best predictor of success is if your teacher believes you're capable. It's important to look at the mechanism here. I'd guess it's mediated by pushing those students harder. Which is a double-edged sword; there is a reason we don't just push everyone harder.
- rewq4321 6y ago
  Affects similar to the "relative age effect"[0] are really important. Kids that just so happen to get ahead early (whether by a slight age advantage, or any other) often end up being put into some sort of "gifted" track where they have access to better teachers/resources, which compounds until they are well ahead of the others. Even without any sort of gifted program, the self-confidence that gets built around being "the smart kid" is a powerful motivator. The fight for self-confidence in school classrooms is zero-sum. What surprises me is that, from what I've read, the IQ literature doesn't seem to take this basic compounding affect into account. So it seems like some skepticism should be held for the idea that IQ is ~50% genetics and ~50% environment. It could be 5% genetics that compounds into 50%. That would seem to be in line with the observation that the measured heritability of intelligence increases with age. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_age_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_age_effect
  - brabel 6y ago
    > What surprises me is that, from what I've read, the IQ literature doesn't seem to take this basic compounding affect into account. According to most of the IQ literature, a person's IQ does not significantly change over time, which means that any compounding effect you might find in academic or professional performance is completely unrelated to the person's IQ actually increasing because of that.
    - rewq4321 6y ago
      > According to most of the IQ literature, a person's IQ does not significantly change over time If you're saying that a person's environment (e.g. education) doesn't causally affect abstract reasoning skills (as measured by IQ), then that is not correct according to the currently available evidence. "We looked at 42 datasets using several different research designs and found that, overall, adding an extra year of schooling in this way improved people's IQ scores by between 1 and 5 points." https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180621112004.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180621112004.h... My previous comment was simply in regard to holes in the analysis of IQ heritability data.
      - tupputuppu 6y ago
        Three points is literally nothing. From and SD of 24 used here in Europe that's 0.125 standard deviations.
      - brabel 6y ago
        This study does not settle the matter. First of all, the additional year of schooling has not been shown to compound, i.e. it works for 1 or 2 years, doesn't mean it works for several years (if it doesn't, then as I had claimed, the gains are NOT very significant). Second, the highest change (5 points per year) was for the cases where "Students who made an age cutoff to begin schooling were compared with students who had not.", which seems to me to imply the difference was of only one year (students who did not make the cutoff had to wait another year to get in), while the other cases, which are what we normally think of when considering years of schooling (i.e. students who were going to get the same number of years of schooling VS the drop-outs) the increase was only 1-2 points over a few years maximum... again, not really very significant (I would consider at least 10 points to be something significant in terms of changing possible outcomes for the person). Here's where I found most of this information: https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/brainstorm/201806/how-much-does-education-really-boost-intelligence https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/brainstorm/201806/... Happy to be corrected if I misunderstand something.
thaumasiotes 6y ago
> What is true is teachers overrate girl's performance earlier in school compared to boys, then girls catch up and overtake, often approaching their teacher's predictions. This might well be a case of matching expectations. Another, to me reasonable, explanation for the results is that teacher's grading includes potential, based on their experience. It's hard to know, and would be very hard to ethically test. Girls overtake boys in terms of grades assigned by teachers, but they don't in terms of scores on standardized tests. You can make the argument that the grades are just another method of overrating girls' performance.
- CJefferson 6y ago
  I only know the UK -- in standardised exams to go to University, and then at University, girls do better on average.
julianmarq 6y ago
> Another, to me reasonable, explanation for the results is that teacher's grading includes potential, based on their experience. It's hard to know, and would be very hard to ethically test. Before discussing this, I'd like to make sure I don't strawman the point you're trying to make: the only way I can interpret this, as of now, is that you think it's "reasonable" to believe that girls inherently have more potential than boys. And, even disregarding that, that it would be reasonable to grade based on "potential" than on actual performance. I ask to make sure because there's no way I got that right. Mind you, some groups of people say stuff like that in earnest so I'm not sure if this is an instance of that or, I hope, I misinterpreted.
- CJefferson 6y ago
  My personal belief (which does not yet have enough evidence) is that boys have a greater variation, and indeed in general society encourages girls -- but this particular paper overclaims (while providing interesting evidence). It could be one gender does have greater mental potential -- certainly one has greater physical potential, but the gap is much smaller and certainly not yet decided.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - julianmarq 6y ago
    So I guess my interpretation wasn't that far off then. You actually were suggesting that girls had more potential. Well, since you also make clear that you believe such a thing only because you choose to and without evidence, I guess there's really no point in discussing it. All I can say is that I disagree, entirely, and this article (and many others with similar findings) are more than enough reason why.
    - CJefferson 6y ago
      I don't see how you could read that from my reply. I don't think girls we can know if girls have more potential "independently of the world around them". It is true girls currently, on average, do significantly better at exams at many levels, in particular to get into University (at least, in the UK). Why is open to debate.
stjohnswarts 6y ago
Teachers definitely can be biased. My anecdote for this was our teacher instantiated a "hierarchy" of readers in several "colors". This was in 3rd grade. I was one of the poorer kids in class and she placed me in the lowest tier which of course made 3rd grade me pissed off. I knew I was one of the best readers and spellers (if not the best) in the class at the time and I was furious to the point of almost crying when I found out which "color" I was. The only thing I could figure at the time was that I was one of poorest brown kids in the class and she just didn't like me. I promptly worked my way through all the "exercises" until I beat most of the rest of the class to the "end" time-wise, other than the ones who started out in the highest "colors" to begin with. She even accused me of cheating at one point and watched me as I completed one and got a perfect score on it like I had most of the others. Teachers are human just like the rest of us and can show bias for lots of reason based on race, gender, etc.

grayhatter 6y ago

I remember reading a study that asserted the best predictor of success is if your teacher believes you're capable. Teachers were told a group of students we're 'gifted' and those students ended up improving more than their peers. Unfortunately, all students were randomly assigned to either the gifted, or non-gifted groups. Actually being brilliant is much less important than if someone believes in you.

im3w1l 6y ago
> best predictor of success is if your teacher believes you're capable. It's important to look at the mechanism here. I'd guess it's mediated by pushing those students harder. Which is a double-edged sword; there is a reason we don't just push everyone harder.
rewq4321 6y ago
Affects similar to the "relative age effect"[0] are really important. Kids that just so happen to get ahead early (whether by a slight age advantage, or any other) often end up being put into some sort of "gifted" track where they have access to better teachers/resources, which compounds until they are well ahead of the others. Even without any sort of gifted program, the self-confidence that gets built around being "the smart kid" is a powerful motivator. The fight for self-confidence in school classrooms is zero-sum. What surprises me is that, from what I've read, the IQ literature doesn't seem to take this basic compounding affect into account. So it seems like some skepticism should be held for the idea that IQ is ~50% genetics and ~50% environment. It could be 5% genetics that compounds into 50%. That would seem to be in line with the observation that the measured heritability of intelligence increases with age. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_age_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_age_effect
- brabel 6y ago
  > What surprises me is that, from what I've read, the IQ literature doesn't seem to take this basic compounding affect into account. According to most of the IQ literature, a person's IQ does not significantly change over time, which means that any compounding effect you might find in academic or professional performance is completely unrelated to the person's IQ actually increasing because of that.
  - rewq4321 6y ago
    > According to most of the IQ literature, a person's IQ does not significantly change over time If you're saying that a person's environment (e.g. education) doesn't causally affect abstract reasoning skills (as measured by IQ), then that is not correct according to the currently available evidence. "We looked at 42 datasets using several different research designs and found that, overall, adding an extra year of schooling in this way improved people's IQ scores by between 1 and 5 points." https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180621112004.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180621112004.h... My previous comment was simply in regard to holes in the analysis of IQ heritability data.
    - tupputuppu 6y ago
      Three points is literally nothing. From and SD of 24 used here in Europe that's 0.125 standard deviations.
    - brabel 6y ago
      This study does not settle the matter. First of all, the additional year of schooling has not been shown to compound, i.e. it works for 1 or 2 years, doesn't mean it works for several years (if it doesn't, then as I had claimed, the gains are NOT very significant). Second, the highest change (5 points per year) was for the cases where "Students who made an age cutoff to begin schooling were compared with students who had not.", which seems to me to imply the difference was of only one year (students who did not make the cutoff had to wait another year to get in), while the other cases, which are what we normally think of when considering years of schooling (i.e. students who were going to get the same number of years of schooling VS the drop-outs) the increase was only 1-2 points over a few years maximum... again, not really very significant (I would consider at least 10 points to be something significant in terms of changing possible outcomes for the person). Here's where I found most of this information: https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/brainstorm/201806/how-much-does-education-really-boost-intelligence https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/brainstorm/201806/... Happy to be corrected if I misunderstand something.

thaumasiotes 6y ago

> What is true is teachers overrate girl's performance earlier in school compared to boys, then girls catch up and overtake, often approaching their teacher's predictions. This might well be a case of matching expectations. Another, to me reasonable, explanation for the results is that teacher's grading includes potential, based on their experience. It's hard to know, and would be very hard to ethically test. Girls overtake boys in terms of grades assigned by teachers, but they don't in terms of scores on standardized tests. You can make the argument that the grades are just another method of overrating girls' performance.

CJefferson 6y ago
I only know the UK -- in standardised exams to go to University, and then at University, girls do better on average.

julianmarq 6y ago

> Another, to me reasonable, explanation for the results is that teacher's grading includes potential, based on their experience. It's hard to know, and would be very hard to ethically test. Before discussing this, I'd like to make sure I don't strawman the point you're trying to make: the only way I can interpret this, as of now, is that you think it's "reasonable" to believe that girls inherently have more potential than boys. And, even disregarding that, that it would be reasonable to grade based on "potential" than on actual performance. I ask to make sure because there's no way I got that right. Mind you, some groups of people say stuff like that in earnest so I'm not sure if this is an instance of that or, I hope, I misinterpreted.

CJefferson 6y ago
My personal belief (which does not yet have enough evidence) is that boys have a greater variation, and indeed in general society encourages girls -- but this particular paper overclaims (while providing interesting evidence). It could be one gender does have greater mental potential -- certainly one has greater physical potential, but the gap is much smaller and certainly not yet decided.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- julianmarq 6y ago
  So I guess my interpretation wasn't that far off then. You actually were suggesting that girls had more potential. Well, since you also make clear that you believe such a thing only because you choose to and without evidence, I guess there's really no point in discussing it. All I can say is that I disagree, entirely, and this article (and many others with similar findings) are more than enough reason why.
  - CJefferson 6y ago
    I don't see how you could read that from my reply. I don't think girls we can know if girls have more potential "independently of the world around them". It is true girls currently, on average, do significantly better at exams at many levels, in particular to get into University (at least, in the UK). Why is open to debate.

stjohnswarts 6y ago

Teachers definitely can be biased. My anecdote for this was our teacher instantiated a "hierarchy" of readers in several "colors". This was in 3rd grade. I was one of the poorer kids in class and she placed me in the lowest tier which of course made 3rd grade me pissed off. I knew I was one of the best readers and spellers (if not the best) in the class at the time and I was furious to the point of almost crying when I found out which "color" I was. The only thing I could figure at the time was that I was one of poorest brown kids in the class and she just didn't like me. I promptly worked my way through all the "exercises" until I beat most of the rest of the class to the "end" time-wise, other than the ones who started out in the highest "colors" to begin with. She even accused me of cheating at one point and watched me as I completed one and got a perfect score on it like I had most of the others. Teachers are human just like the rest of us and can show bias for lots of reason based on race, gender, etc.