4 ms·

The myth of the fast learner

11 points by RafelMri 4y ago

retrocryptid 4y ago
What the heck was that? It was a small bit of text with multiple ads and pop-ups fighting to stay on top. I'm sure it was originally something intelligible, but by the time it got to me it was a soup of ad spam.
- brudgers 4y ago
  Same for me. So I used reader mode. It might be worth trying. Or not.
- theamk 4y ago
  I mean, you are browsing the web without adblocker, what do you expect? We are not in 1995 anymore. I have uBlock Origin installed and the site was very readable, no popups or ads.
  - retrocryptid 4y ago
    Well. You make a reasonable point. I often just use eww or lynx, so often don't see the worst of it.
    - qup 4y ago
      Emacs web wowser, for those of us not in the cult
  - slowmovintarget 4y ago
    The site even detects that and runs a banner "It appears you are using Enhanced Tracking Protection. What are the consequences? <link>" I actually laughed at this.
torstenvl 4y ago
The myth of "The myth of the fast learner." Please don't post pseudoscience on HN.
- drewcoo 4y ago
  It was a clickbait title, but I don't see how it was pseudoscience. Care to explain?
- dang 4y ago
  "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - torstenvl 4y ago
    Pseudoscience is when people use scientific-sounding words and phrases in non-scientific writing, particularly in support of a prescriptive belief system. That is what this is, and no rational person could argue otherwise. Could it have been explained with more specificity? Yes, as has been done above, admirably, by codeflo: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35709930 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35709930. But it is nowhere near shallow to call a spade a spade.
    - dang 4y ago
      I'm not saying you're wrong about the paper, I'm saying that your comment was unsubstantive and broke the HN guidelines. Those are completely different points. The fact that another commenter posted a substantive explanation is admirable, but it would have been better to upvote that other comment and leave it at that. It's much better to post nothing than to post something unsubstantive/snarky/namecalling.
      - 4y ago
neonate 4y ago
https://archive.ph/pJKso https://archive.ph/pJKso
codeflo 4y ago
I’m no expert on the sociological aspects of this, but do claim a bit of knowledge on statistics. And when a research finding contradicts everyday experience, it’s natural to be skeptical, so I looked at the paper in a bit of detail (https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2221311120 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2221311120). While I do have other questions about the test setup, here’s the statistical analysis they did: They divided the students into quartile buckets based on prior knowledge on a subject, and then measured learning rates using some kind of online course system. What they found, in their own words, is that there’s only “small variability of student learning rate relative to variability in students’ initial knowledge”. In other words, and looking at their tables, there’s actually large variability in learning rate overall, but that’s almost perfectly correlated with initial performance. To be concrete, the improvement rate, using whatever measurement they use, is 2.56 for the top initial knowledge quartile and 1.70 for the bottom one. So top performers do indeed learn 50% faster. They hide this using lots of language about “little inter-quartile differences”, and then denounce all kinds of “problematic conceptualizations” that society has. When in reality, at the university level, this “initial knowledge” isn’t some independent random variable that you have to control for, but, as this study actually very clearly shows, the integral of the student’s learning rate over their lifetime.
- AndrewDucker 4y ago
  "based on prior knowledge on a subject" seems to causing the issues here. I'd expect people with 10 years of programming experience to pick up a new programming language much faster (overall) than someone with only 1 year. I wouldn't expect them to be necessarily faster at picking up a topic that has nothing to do with programming. So there's a big difference between "People who already have a bunch of experience on a topic learn something on the same topic faster" and "Some people just plain learn things faster than others". So they're controlling for "amount of experience", and saying that as long as you have a similar amount of experience on a topic as someone else you'll probably learn about the same speed as them. And you're saying "But the amount of experience you have makes you learn faster!" - and these two things don't seem to be in opposition, to me.
readthenotes1 4y ago
[flagged]

11 points by RafelMri 4y ago

What the heck was that? It was a small bit of text with multiple ads and pop-ups fighting to stay on top. I'm sure it was originally something intelligible, but by the time it got to me it was a soup of ad spam.

brudgers 4y ago
Same for me. So I used reader mode. It might be worth trying. Or not.
theamk 4y ago
I mean, you are browsing the web without adblocker, what do you expect? We are not in 1995 anymore. I have uBlock Origin installed and the site was very readable, no popups or ads.
- retrocryptid 4y ago
  Well. You make a reasonable point. I often just use eww or lynx, so often don't see the worst of it.
  - qup 4y ago
    Emacs web wowser, for those of us not in the cult
- slowmovintarget 4y ago
  The site even detects that and runs a banner "It appears you are using Enhanced Tracking Protection. What are the consequences? <link>" I actually laughed at this.

torstenvl 4y ago

The myth of "The myth of the fast learner." Please don't post pseudoscience on HN.

drewcoo 4y ago
It was a clickbait title, but I don't see how it was pseudoscience. Care to explain?
dang 4y ago
"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- torstenvl 4y ago
  Pseudoscience is when people use scientific-sounding words and phrases in non-scientific writing, particularly in support of a prescriptive belief system. That is what this is, and no rational person could argue otherwise. Could it have been explained with more specificity? Yes, as has been done above, admirably, by codeflo: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35709930 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35709930. But it is nowhere near shallow to call a spade a spade.
  - dang 4y ago
    I'm not saying you're wrong about the paper, I'm saying that your comment was unsubstantive and broke the HN guidelines. Those are completely different points. The fact that another commenter posted a substantive explanation is admirable, but it would have been better to upvote that other comment and leave it at that. It's much better to post nothing than to post something unsubstantive/snarky/namecalling.
    - 4y ago

neonate 4y ago

https://archive.ph/pJKso https://archive.ph/pJKso

codeflo 4y ago

I’m no expert on the sociological aspects of this, but do claim a bit of knowledge on statistics. And when a research finding contradicts everyday experience, it’s natural to be skeptical, so I looked at the paper in a bit of detail (https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2221311120 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2221311120). While I do have other questions about the test setup, here’s the statistical analysis they did: They divided the students into quartile buckets based on prior knowledge on a subject, and then measured learning rates using some kind of online course system. What they found, in their own words, is that there’s only “small variability of student learning rate relative to variability in students’ initial knowledge”. In other words, and looking at their tables, there’s actually large variability in learning rate overall, but that’s almost perfectly correlated with initial performance. To be concrete, the improvement rate, using whatever measurement they use, is 2.56 for the top initial knowledge quartile and 1.70 for the bottom one. So top performers do indeed learn 50% faster. They hide this using lots of language about “little inter-quartile differences”, and then denounce all kinds of “problematic conceptualizations” that society has. When in reality, at the university level, this “initial knowledge” isn’t some independent random variable that you have to control for, but, as this study actually very clearly shows, the integral of the student’s learning rate over their lifetime.

AndrewDucker 4y ago
"based on prior knowledge on a subject" seems to causing the issues here. I'd expect people with 10 years of programming experience to pick up a new programming language much faster (overall) than someone with only 1 year. I wouldn't expect them to be necessarily faster at picking up a topic that has nothing to do with programming. So there's a big difference between "People who already have a bunch of experience on a topic learn something on the same topic faster" and "Some people just plain learn things faster than others". So they're controlling for "amount of experience", and saying that as long as you have a similar amount of experience on a topic as someone else you'll probably learn about the same speed as them. And you're saying "But the amount of experience you have makes you learn faster!" - and these two things don't seem to be in opposition, to me.

readthenotes1 4y ago

[flagged]