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> Yes, because Goodhart's law is applied. "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure". It depends on whether the grade is the ends or not

by qiskit 5y ago

> Yes, because Goodhart's law is applied. "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure". It depends on whether the grade is the ends or not. But here the grades aren't the ends. It's just a means to achieve the ends - learning the material. > Many of those getting an A in arithmetics will have learned "how to get an A" instead of "how to practice and use arithmetics". That's just a reflection of corruption in the system and not grading itself. > In Romania, where school is very focused on grades at all levels, pupils really do actually learn how to get the grade instead of how to think. No school anywhere exists to teach you how to think. But that's besides the point. Does the grade reflect the student's understanding of the material? > And the actual content is forgotten after a week or a month. Most content is forgotten regardless of the education system. So how do kids in romania learn to get good grades? Bribery? That doesn't show that grades are bad, but that the corruption is bad.

olliej 5y ago
> It depends on whether the grade is the ends or not. But here the grades aren't the ends. It's just a means to achieve the ends - learning the material. This is objectively false in the US education system at least. If you look at the training for standardized tests (the training that costs money, but is fundamentally necessary if you want to get into a good school) a huge amount of it has nothing to do with the material, and everything to do with how to rapidly exclude incorrect answers. All of that exclusion is based on various numeric tricks or filters with no actual understanding of why. Moreover standardized tests in the US explicitly encourage that behaviour by being ridiculously time constrained, to the extent that if you do not get training in how to *quickly* answer questions, no amount of understanding the material matters.
- solveit 5y ago
  How much time do people actually spend on this training? I am dead certain that the bulk of the time is spent on actually learning the material and not on gaming the test. This is because there are only so many tricks you can learn, and you can learn them all in a week. > (the training that costs money, but is fundamentally necessary if you want to get into a good school This is objectively false. Source: I went to multiple good schools and met a boatload of people who also got in without said training. Also, that test-taking training is an overhyped and overpriced collection of cheap common sense strategies. You can learn how to do well on a multiple choice test in 20 seconds. You always pick the most likely answer. Strategies specific to things like the SATs boil down to memorizing vocab and doing a hundred practice tests. You can do this for a hundred bucks by buying a couple test prep books over Amazon. The part of the test-taking training that costs thousands of dollars is where they get a teacher with a fancy degree to babysit unmotivated children into actually doing the work. > Moreover standardized tests in the US explicitly encourage that behaviour by being ridiculously time constrained, to the extent that if you do not get training in how to quickly answer questions, no amount of understanding the material matters. There is actual academic research studying this, and shockingly understanding correlates strongly with being able to quickly answer questions. It's unfortunate that we can't assess millions of children by having them take time-unconstrained oral exams or projects, but the effect of training is grossly overstated. Show me any intervention (other than actually learning the material) that boosts your SAT score by more than ~30 points.
alexvoda 5y ago
> It depends on whether the grade is the ends or not. But here the grades aren't the ends. It's just a means to achieve the ends - learning the material. Goodhart's law makes them become the end. It does not matter if the intended grades to only be a means. If they are what is measured, they will become the end. At least for some. > That's just a reflection of corruption in the system and not grading itself. I am not talking about cheating or bribing. I am talking about all ways to pass a test and not retain any knowledge after an hour/day/week/month. > Most content is forgotten regardless of the education system. It matters if that content (and especially the existance of that content) is forgotten in a hour to a month or if that content is forgotten in years. The longer the time, the higher the chance you will actually use it. And in many cases, if after years, only the knowledge about the existance of the content is retained, it is enough. You know it exists, so you know how to find it when you need it. But it is entirely possible to pass tests and remember nothing at all a short while after.

by qiskit 5y ago

olliej 5y ago

> It depends on whether the grade is the ends or not. But here the grades aren't the ends. It's just a means to achieve the ends - learning the material. This is objectively false in the US education system at least. If you look at the training for standardized tests (the training that costs money, but is fundamentally necessary if you want to get into a good school) a huge amount of it has nothing to do with the material, and everything to do with how to rapidly exclude incorrect answers. All of that exclusion is based on various numeric tricks or filters with no actual understanding of why. Moreover standardized tests in the US explicitly encourage that behaviour by being ridiculously time constrained, to the extent that if you do not get training in how to *quickly* answer questions, no amount of understanding the material matters.

solveit 5y ago
How much time do people actually spend on this training? I am dead certain that the bulk of the time is spent on actually learning the material and not on gaming the test. This is because there are only so many tricks you can learn, and you can learn them all in a week. > (the training that costs money, but is fundamentally necessary if you want to get into a good school This is objectively false. Source: I went to multiple good schools and met a boatload of people who also got in without said training. Also, that test-taking training is an overhyped and overpriced collection of cheap common sense strategies. You can learn how to do well on a multiple choice test in 20 seconds. You always pick the most likely answer. Strategies specific to things like the SATs boil down to memorizing vocab and doing a hundred practice tests. You can do this for a hundred bucks by buying a couple test prep books over Amazon. The part of the test-taking training that costs thousands of dollars is where they get a teacher with a fancy degree to babysit unmotivated children into actually doing the work. > Moreover standardized tests in the US explicitly encourage that behaviour by being ridiculously time constrained, to the extent that if you do not get training in how to quickly answer questions, no amount of understanding the material matters. There is actual academic research studying this, and shockingly understanding correlates strongly with being able to quickly answer questions. It's unfortunate that we can't assess millions of children by having them take time-unconstrained oral exams or projects, but the effect of training is grossly overstated. Show me any intervention (other than actually learning the material) that boosts your SAT score by more than ~30 points.

alexvoda 5y ago

> It depends on whether the grade is the ends or not. But here the grades aren't the ends. It's just a means to achieve the ends - learning the material. Goodhart's law makes them become the end. It does not matter if the intended grades to only be a means. If they are what is measured, they will become the end. At least for some. > That's just a reflection of corruption in the system and not grading itself. I am not talking about cheating or bribing. I am talking about all ways to pass a test and not retain any knowledge after an hour/day/week/month. > Most content is forgotten regardless of the education system. It matters if that content (and especially the existance of that content) is forgotten in a hour to a month or if that content is forgotten in years. The longer the time, the higher the chance you will actually use it. And in many cases, if after years, only the knowledge about the existance of the content is retained, it is enough. You know it exists, so you know how to find it when you need it. But it is entirely possible to pass tests and remember nothing at all a short while after.