12 ms·
The 2 Sigma Problem (1984) [pdf]
- sahyooni 5y agoBloom's 2-Sigma effect was not replicated. The assessments used in the original study were quite defective.
- flerovium 5y agoThis...is in line with intuition. It's interesting that "mathematical circles" have become more popular, in line with this.
- lern_too_spel 5y agoYet despite this being completely obvious to anybody who has any experience with tutoring, I see people rolling out the same old discredited hypothesis of genetics having the largest influence on academic achievement in every HN thread tangentially related to intelligence.
- spoonjim 5y agoAt the top end, performance levels are determined by intrinsics perhaps genetics, perhaps not). If I had been coached in basketball every day since birth I could have become a very good basketball player. I would have probably been the captain of my high school team despite being 5 foot 6. However there is ~zero chance I would gotten to the level of playing in the NBA. Anyone can get better at anything, but they will ~always be worse than someone.
- ryan93 5y agoAnyone who has taught knows there are wild differences in ability. Not that I think everyone is reaching their potential.
- jvanderbot 5y agoI agree (having taught), but I disagree it's somehow genetic (which implies inevitable and irreversible). Most of the time it was a mismatch in prerequisites and a mental block like anxiety.
- ngcc_hk 5y agoIt can’t be not genetic. Just not totally I guess you meant. Or determinist as you said. As above said many factors but push genetic out is also not good.
- jodrellblank 5y agoPhineas Gage[1] would have limited ability, it doesn't mean he was genetically destined to get a rod through the brain. Weston Price[2] photographed and studied people around the world and wrote the book "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration" arguing that modern diets lead to physical development problems. Not that it can't be influenced by genetics, or that people can all be the same; very few people will be Von Neumann reading a 46-volume world history series in his fifth language at age 8. But saying "these people are failing at school, it's genetic" is a handwavy dismissal; a giving up on them. If it is, what should it change about teaching? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage [2] https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=nutrition+and+physical+degeneration&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=nutrition+and+physical+dege...
- lern_too_spel 5y agoIf you have tutored one-on-one, you will surely have noticed that the difference in ability is miniscule compared to what can be taught by tutoring. Indian children do not have a genetic predisposition to spelling English words correctly.
- rajin444 5y agoWhat dictates your ability to learn if it's not genetics? I suppose if you believe in a higher power that might work.
- oh_sigh 5y agoPerhaps the point is most people are limited by unfulfilled potential - not that they've reached their genetic max. I do t think anyone would argue that a really nurtured lettuce plant would ever match ability to learn with a slightly neglected human.
- sp332 5y agoParents' income level https://phys.org/news/2014-02-parental-income-strong-predictor-student.html https://phys.org/news/2014-02-parental-income-strong-predict... Organizational skills https://www.jstor.org/stable/23887095 https://www.jstor.org/stable/23887095 Class size http://www.classsizematters.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/200030311.pdf http://www.classsizematters.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/2... (PDF) Home environment https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09737189.2009.11885270 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09737189.2009.11...
- barry-cotter 5y agoThree of those are genetically inluenced. The better your educational sysyem is at imparting non-cognitive skills and at removing children from abusive and unsafe environments the more the generits will matter for the same reason genetics mattered more for height in 1900s US than UK, saturation of inputs. As for the one that is in no way genetic > Small class size has at best a small effect on academic achievement, and may harm some students > Reducing class size is seen as a way of improving student performance. But larger class sizes help control education budgets. The evidence suggests at best a small effect on reading achievement. There is a negative, but statistically insignificant, effect on mathematics, so it cannot be ruled out that some children may be adversely affected. https://www.campbellcollaboration.org/better-evidence/small-class-sizes-student-achievement-primary-and-secondary-schools.html https://www.campbellcollaboration.org/better-evidence/small-...
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- User23 5y agoImproved environment actually exacerbates genetic differences. One obvious example is height. Back when malnourishment was common most everyone was rather short and nutrition was the best predictor of height. In an environment where adequate nutrition is widespread, genetics is the best predictor of height. I’m distrustful of analogies, but I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that we’ll see a similar effect with improving education. Although solving that is going to be trickier than nutrition I expect.
- Jensson 5y agoRight, today everyone gets to go to a decent school for many years. Historically people didn't go to school. Take my case, I was neglected as a kid, my mom often didn't have a place to live so we moved between her friends places. I was raised on fast food and cookies, never did homework or studied. Yet I still did much better than average people in school and later got into Google as a software engineer. Most people who fail to get good grades in math had a much better home environment than I had, if they had my genes they would have gotten perfect grades in it like I did. So from my perspective, the only thing I can say is that they are stupid privileged rich kids (a kid whose parent has a stable place where they can live is privileged from my perspective) who didn't have any difficulties in life and still can't even do something as simple as calculus even after having listened to it in class for like 100 hours. "Outliers doesn't matter" They sure do in this kind of discussion. If you just ignore all the kids with good genes who came from bad environments then of course it is easy to say that good genes doesn't matter, but there are a lot of such kids. And the kids from poor environments who don't do well just didn't have good enough genes to make up for the environment. I can say that if every kid had my level of talent for math then basically every single kid would get straight A's on every math course given today that a typical software engineer takes without studying. I did that, and most people have better upbringings than me. Of course in that case the curriculum would adapt, but still. (Note that we shouldn't base education decisions on outliers however. I can't give people any advice on what to do, others can't do the same thing as me, I just understood everything in class from sitting there and listening, other kids obviously doesn't do the same so they need help. But still you can't say that genes don't matter) Edit: Also note that I have two brothers who will likely go through their entire lives without ever having a stable job. There wasn't some kind of hidden special thing in my upgringing.
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- mleonhard 5y agoDo any primary schools use the mastery learning method? Why don't all schools use it?
- jrumbut 5y agoI had it for a class in college and it was an absolute nightmare for me. This was from someone well known in mastery learning so I don't think it was poor implementation. The only thing I learned was empathy for people who struggle that way with the typical mode of instruction (which works very well for me).
- mleonhard 5y agoWould you please tell me more about your experience?
- ofou 5y agoKhan Academy
- hexane360 5y agoI've seen middle schools integrate Aleks (https://www.aleks.com/ https://www.aleks.com/) online learning along with regular math classes. I don't have the data to know how successful it was at bringing the lower tail of the distribution up, but it was great for kids who were smart and motivated by the material. Some were even able to complete two years' worth of curriculum and test out of their next math class.
- selimthegrim 5y agoUCSB uses it I think too
- barry-cotter 5y agoSchools are set up for the convenience of the people who work there. Mastery learning is a nightmare. Differentiated learning is really hard because you have to teach what amount to three classes at the same time. Mastery learning is worse because you have to try and teach as many classes as there are students. I exaggerate but you get the point. I know of absolutely no examples of schools using mastery learning. The school I'm in moved to streaming English classes by ability for grades 6,7,8 (Foundation) into A,B,C,D and 9 into A,B,C. Teaching the Foundation classes works ok but I can see why so many teachers hate streaming. Teaching lots of low ability/motivation students is unbelievably dispiriting. Low ability students you can at least help but if you're teaching them something they don't care about, like most teachers do for most of every class then low motivation students are hell to teach. Schools are mostly child care and ranking by academic ability. Education is secomdary. Mastery learning is really hard and would reqire a wholesale reorganisation of schools. That's a large part of why it isn't done.
- sahyooni 5y agoBloom's original study could not be replicated, likely because the original assessments that were used were quite defective.
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- siboehm 5y agoHere's a good review of the research around this problem: https://nintil.com/bloom-sigma/ https://nintil.com/bloom-sigma/ The author concludes (IMO, but you should read it yourself) that while tutoring does have positive effects, the 2 Sigma effect size measured by Bloom was probably an outlier.
- dr_dshiv 5y agoKeep in mind that Benjamin Bloom attributes much of the success of tutoring to the affective learning components. That is not addressed in the meta analysis. Bloom described how the tutor and the student achieved an emotional connection that is often difficult to achieve with a class of students. This is so critical, because the barrier to learning for many students is emotional. It’s not that they are really trying and just don’t get it; it’s that they don’t have the capacity to care enough to engage over time. Emotional barriers to learning are super widespread — being “bored” for instance is an emotional response. Transformational learning takes place when there is an authentic emotional motivation to succeed. Human contact can support that. It’s also why stuff like ALECKS only goes so far. There is not emotional resonance, like with a human.
- mleonhard 5y agoI think you could combine both models: Students use tutoring software and their teacher spends time with each student celebrating their progress and encouraging and teaching them when they struggle. The teacher's primary job would be to teach the children how to learn and succeed in academics. Specifically, teachers would teach students how to make plans, follow plans, focus, how to think about success, how to think about failure, determine the cause of failure, update their plans, develop determination, evaluate their own mood, and recognize their mental habits. Teachers would also assign, grade, and give feedback on student projects. Projects would have multiple iterations before a final grade.
- barry-cotter 5y ago> being “bored” for instance is an emotional response Don't be so patronising. People are bored (not "bored") because they're being asked to do something they don't care about. That's an extremely common experience. About a third of high school students are bored every day in every class, and another third report being bored in at least one class every day. Most people have no interest in intellectual pursuits. Their preferences are completely valid.
- d1a2n 5y agoIt would never occur to a real Sigma that there was a problem.
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