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ACT test scores have plummeted too. Combined with what we know about the physical brain changes that can be observed after a single mild infection, it all paint

ACT test scores have plummeted too. Combined with what we know about the physical brain changes that can be observed after a single mild infection, it all paints a potentially concerning relationship with COVID.

deleted 3y ago
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ghodith 3y ago
Could also be the consequences of schooling during a lockdown.
- xattt 3y ago
  People continued to drive.
  - infamouscow 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - phendrenad2 3y ago
      People did continue to drive though. At least where I was. Please continue trying to rewrite history.
  - toast0 3y ago
    A lot of people changed their driving habits significantly, and there was a period of significantly less driving. Many people commute much less than before. At some points, traffic was so much below the usual that several record breaking Cannonball runs were had that are unlikely to be broken unless there's a significant relaxation of speed limits nationwide.
- stringsandchars 3y ago
  > Could also be the consequences of schooling during a lockdown. Luckily we have the control-group of Sweden, that spent a large part of the pandemic proclaiming that not closing schools was going to have a fantastic positive effect on children's learning. The actual result: Sweden's PISA results declined much more steeply than countries who used distance-learning during the pandemic.
- DiogenesKynikos 3y ago
  For yet another round, East Asian countries sit at the top of the PISA rankings. These are also the countries that had some of the strictest responses to CoVID worldwide. Those things don't necessarily have any relation, but clearly many countries with strict CoVID responses are still doing well in education.
gpt5 3y ago
Or maybe ACT test scores have plummeted because these students have experienced 1-2 years of remote teaching, which might have been less effective than in-person school?
- woodruffw 3y ago
  Per the comment thread, this doesn't have perfect explanatory power: drivers and ATC have also recorded statistically significant declines over the same time period. In other words: remote schooling may have had a negative effect on ACT scores, but all evidence points to it not being the only (or even primary) effect.
  - dangus 3y ago
    Regarding this thread, I really want to caution on the desire to automatically assign worse car crash rates to covid-19 infections, or any other specific cause. Car crashes and ATC mistakes are two different sets of data. Just because they are going up or down at the same time and you can overlay some other event on top of it means absolutely nothing on its own. There are a lot more reasons that car crash rates can be getting worse. For one thing, they have been trending upwards since smartphones have become prevalent. Car crashes weren't trending down for some time before covid-19. Also, the number of screens installed on automobile dashboards is increasing every year. Still, I won't automatically assign blame to smartphones or automotive screens unless someone at least attempting to use the scientific method weighs in on the subject, because our intuitions about statistics are often really, really wrong.
    - 10u152 3y ago
      Distractions might be going up in cars, but I’d guess that’s offset by automatic crash avoidance systems that’s also going up in cars.
      - orbit7 3y ago
        I had a new car for a month (mine got damaged whilst parked). Simply adjusting the aircon fan required screen navigation followed by a fidly touch screen control. The crash avoidance systen was a distracting alert that took my attention away from the road for none risks but instead increased there likelyhood to become a risk. Glad to get my own car back with physical switches and dials without all this crap, having to operate a tablet behind the wheel is a dumb idea and no different to operating a smart phone behind the wheel.
siquick 3y ago
Or spending years being overwhelmed by smartphones mainlining information to us for multiple hours a day is finally catching up with us?
xyst 3y ago
colleges still care about ACT? I thought SAT was the golden standard. I remember taking the ACT many years ago and it was definitely much easier. Also not many colleges accepted it at the time. SAT was preferred.
- Brybry 3y ago
  The preference is regional. [1] When I took the ACT, many years ago, it was the test the university I was applying to listed first in their requirements. And that's still true. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SAT-ACT-Preference-Map.svg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SAT-ACT-Preference-Map....
  - saghm 3y ago
    When I was in high school (graduated 2012), my school recommended we take both, since not only do certain schools prefer one to another, but if you happened to score relatively well on one versus the other, you could choose to only send that one instead.
    - withinboredom 3y ago
      > if you happened to score relatively well on one versus the other This should be reasonable proof that the test doesn't test things very well, IMHO, because there are so many factors that go into getting a good score. I was one of these people -- I got one point below perfect on ACT, but the morning of my SAT, I got into an argument with my mom and got a below-average score.
      - pbh101 3y ago
        1. No (nontrivial) test is perfect: we take each with a grain of salt and accompanying context 2. You can take these tests multiple times and use the highest score, reducing impact of one-off ‘off days’ for whatever reason 3. These particular two tests do not claim to assess the same thing (aptitude vs achievement) and do so through different implementations These factors limit me from tending towards ‘reasonable proof’ on its face when considering the system as a whole.
dangus 3y ago
This might be the worst real example of a jump to conclusions based on a casual correlation I have seen in my entire life. I don't even know how to properly deconstruct how irresponsible this style of thinking is, it's just so flabbergasting. In science you can't just draw lines on the wall between random shit like you're Charlie Day in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. ACT scores are very obviously not a product of your raw brain power as an isolated variable, they include a number of other factors like how much sleep you got last night, your family life, the quality of your curriculum and teachers, your socioeconomic status of yourself and your peers, and, of course, whether you spent a year in a global pandemic emergency while your school district scrambled to switch to a fully online curriculum with zero notice. There is a very well-documented labor shortage for air traffic controllers. Fewer people are covering the same shifts - that is fact. If we are going to ignore the scientific method and start pointing fingers, this is so much more obviously the type of thing to start scapegoating.
- 10u152 3y ago
  Not sure of the specifics, but often shortage of labour leads to lowering of standards of training/min experience required as well.
- astrostl 3y ago
  > potentially concerning > This might be the worst real example of a jump to conclusions based on a casual correlation I have seen in my entire life. I don't even know how to properly deconstruct how irresponsible this style of thinking is, it's just so flabbergasting. Exactly who is jumping to conclusions in this exchange? I used the words "potentially concerning" because that is what I thought and intended to express. I could have used words like "causally disastrous" instead, but they weren't what I thought or intended to express. I am also not smuggling in such a claim in a "just asking questions" sort of way. I think the potential exists, should be studied, and shouldn't be reflexively admitted or dismissed until studied. That's all. Please respond to what people actually say, and ask questions if what they said wasn't clear to you.
  - dangus 3y ago
sinuhe69 3y ago
The same as the PISA scores. PISA, which might not be well known is the US, is the International Student Assessment for the 15 years old students in the OECD (and non-OECD) countries. The PISA measures their ability to use their reading, mathematics and science knowledge and skills to meet real-life challenges. The PISA scores for 2022 is the lowest in the history of PISA and show a clear trend downward since 2012. The huge drop in 2022 scores can be explained through the longer school closure period during the pandemic lockdowns. But only partly. The increasing prevalence of mobile phone amongst children and their distractions certainly play a significant part in contributing to the huge drop in PISA scores. Not necessarily related to the increasing number of air traffic controls incidents, though.
- rowanG077 3y ago
  I'm not sure phones can explain it. Even when I was in high school 10 years ago everyone had a smartphone with social media.
  - uoaei 3y ago
    You didn't have the same platforms nor the same dynamics on them. Social media has evolved over the past decade.
    - spurgu 3y ago
      Yup. Things like filters & algorithms have "improved" significantly.
    - rowanG077 3y ago
      Definitely. But then smartphones are not to blame. The algorithms are.
  - MandieD 3y ago
    But you didn’t have ubiquitous smartphones and tablets when you were 6-10 years old, and weren’t handed a smartphone to head off a tantrum during the absolutely critical brain development years before school.
mikrotikker 3y ago
What about the effects of an extremely wide and extremely quick deployment of a novel vaccine (under threat of being fired)?
- throwawayq3423 3y ago
  What does "novel vaccine" mean?
  - zmgsabst 3y ago
    That we haven’t used mRNA gene therapies to treat a virus before.
    - lostlogin 3y ago
      Maybe not that widely, but the technique seems to have had prior usage. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRNA_vaccine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRNA_vaccine
      - mikrotikker 3y ago
        In bovines yes. And they laughed at Joe Rogan for using "horse medicine"
        throwawayq3423 3y ago
        It's been studied intensely since its discovery in the 1990s, it's not in any way a "brand new" technology.
  - defrost 3y ago
    A vaccine that had a significant impact on a notable percentage of the population 24 months before widespread uptake. The Thiotimoline of vaccines. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Historical_Average_ACT_Scores.svg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Historical_Average_A... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiotimoline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiotimoline
deleted 3y ago
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deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

ghodith 3y ago

Could also be the consequences of schooling during a lockdown.

xattt 3y ago
People continued to drive.
- infamouscow 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - phendrenad2 3y ago
    People did continue to drive though. At least where I was. Please continue trying to rewrite history.
- toast0 3y ago
  A lot of people changed their driving habits significantly, and there was a period of significantly less driving. Many people commute much less than before. At some points, traffic was so much below the usual that several record breaking Cannonball runs were had that are unlikely to be broken unless there's a significant relaxation of speed limits nationwide.
stringsandchars 3y ago
> Could also be the consequences of schooling during a lockdown. Luckily we have the control-group of Sweden, that spent a large part of the pandemic proclaiming that not closing schools was going to have a fantastic positive effect on children's learning. The actual result: Sweden's PISA results declined much more steeply than countries who used distance-learning during the pandemic.
DiogenesKynikos 3y ago
For yet another round, East Asian countries sit at the top of the PISA rankings. These are also the countries that had some of the strictest responses to CoVID worldwide. Those things don't necessarily have any relation, but clearly many countries with strict CoVID responses are still doing well in education.

gpt5 3y ago

Or maybe ACT test scores have plummeted because these students have experienced 1-2 years of remote teaching, which might have been less effective than in-person school?

woodruffw 3y ago
Per the comment thread, this doesn't have perfect explanatory power: drivers and ATC have also recorded statistically significant declines over the same time period. In other words: remote schooling may have had a negative effect on ACT scores, but all evidence points to it not being the only (or even primary) effect.
- dangus 3y ago
  Regarding this thread, I really want to caution on the desire to automatically assign worse car crash rates to covid-19 infections, or any other specific cause. Car crashes and ATC mistakes are two different sets of data. Just because they are going up or down at the same time and you can overlay some other event on top of it means absolutely nothing on its own. There are a lot more reasons that car crash rates can be getting worse. For one thing, they have been trending upwards since smartphones have become prevalent. Car crashes weren't trending down for some time before covid-19. Also, the number of screens installed on automobile dashboards is increasing every year. Still, I won't automatically assign blame to smartphones or automotive screens unless someone at least attempting to use the scientific method weighs in on the subject, because our intuitions about statistics are often really, really wrong.
  - 10u152 3y ago
    Distractions might be going up in cars, but I’d guess that’s offset by automatic crash avoidance systems that’s also going up in cars.
    - orbit7 3y ago
      I had a new car for a month (mine got damaged whilst parked). Simply adjusting the aircon fan required screen navigation followed by a fidly touch screen control. The crash avoidance systen was a distracting alert that took my attention away from the road for none risks but instead increased there likelyhood to become a risk. Glad to get my own car back with physical switches and dials without all this crap, having to operate a tablet behind the wheel is a dumb idea and no different to operating a smart phone behind the wheel.

siquick 3y ago

Or spending years being overwhelmed by smartphones mainlining information to us for multiple hours a day is finally catching up with us?

xyst 3y ago

colleges still care about ACT? I thought SAT was the golden standard. I remember taking the ACT many years ago and it was definitely much easier. Also not many colleges accepted it at the time. SAT was preferred.

Brybry 3y ago
The preference is regional. [1] When I took the ACT, many years ago, it was the test the university I was applying to listed first in their requirements. And that's still true. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SAT-ACT-Preference-Map.svg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SAT-ACT-Preference-Map....
- saghm 3y ago
  When I was in high school (graduated 2012), my school recommended we take both, since not only do certain schools prefer one to another, but if you happened to score relatively well on one versus the other, you could choose to only send that one instead.
  - withinboredom 3y ago
    > if you happened to score relatively well on one versus the other This should be reasonable proof that the test doesn't test things very well, IMHO, because there are so many factors that go into getting a good score. I was one of these people -- I got one point below perfect on ACT, but the morning of my SAT, I got into an argument with my mom and got a below-average score.
    - pbh101 3y ago
      1. No (nontrivial) test is perfect: we take each with a grain of salt and accompanying context 2. You can take these tests multiple times and use the highest score, reducing impact of one-off ‘off days’ for whatever reason 3. These particular two tests do not claim to assess the same thing (aptitude vs achievement) and do so through different implementations These factors limit me from tending towards ‘reasonable proof’ on its face when considering the system as a whole.

dangus 3y ago

This might be the worst real example of a jump to conclusions based on a casual correlation I have seen in my entire life. I don't even know how to properly deconstruct how irresponsible this style of thinking is, it's just so flabbergasting. In science you can't just draw lines on the wall between random shit like you're Charlie Day in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. ACT scores are very obviously not a product of your raw brain power as an isolated variable, they include a number of other factors like how much sleep you got last night, your family life, the quality of your curriculum and teachers, your socioeconomic status of yourself and your peers, and, of course, whether you spent a year in a global pandemic emergency while your school district scrambled to switch to a fully online curriculum with zero notice. There is a very well-documented labor shortage for air traffic controllers. Fewer people are covering the same shifts - that is fact. If we are going to ignore the scientific method and start pointing fingers, this is so much more obviously the type of thing to start scapegoating.

10u152 3y ago
Not sure of the specifics, but often shortage of labour leads to lowering of standards of training/min experience required as well.
astrostl 3y ago
> potentially concerning > This might be the worst real example of a jump to conclusions based on a casual correlation I have seen in my entire life. I don't even know how to properly deconstruct how irresponsible this style of thinking is, it's just so flabbergasting. Exactly who is jumping to conclusions in this exchange? I used the words "potentially concerning" because that is what I thought and intended to express. I could have used words like "causally disastrous" instead, but they weren't what I thought or intended to express. I am also not smuggling in such a claim in a "just asking questions" sort of way. I think the potential exists, should be studied, and shouldn't be reflexively admitted or dismissed until studied. That's all. Please respond to what people actually say, and ask questions if what they said wasn't clear to you.
- dangus 3y ago

sinuhe69 3y ago

The same as the PISA scores. PISA, which might not be well known is the US, is the International Student Assessment for the 15 years old students in the OECD (and non-OECD) countries. The PISA measures their ability to use their reading, mathematics and science knowledge and skills to meet real-life challenges. The PISA scores for 2022 is the lowest in the history of PISA and show a clear trend downward since 2012. The huge drop in 2022 scores can be explained through the longer school closure period during the pandemic lockdowns. But only partly. The increasing prevalence of mobile phone amongst children and their distractions certainly play a significant part in contributing to the huge drop in PISA scores. Not necessarily related to the increasing number of air traffic controls incidents, though.

rowanG077 3y ago
I'm not sure phones can explain it. Even when I was in high school 10 years ago everyone had a smartphone with social media.
- uoaei 3y ago
  You didn't have the same platforms nor the same dynamics on them. Social media has evolved over the past decade.
  - spurgu 3y ago
    Yup. Things like filters & algorithms have "improved" significantly.
  - rowanG077 3y ago
    Definitely. But then smartphones are not to blame. The algorithms are.
- MandieD 3y ago
  But you didn’t have ubiquitous smartphones and tablets when you were 6-10 years old, and weren’t handed a smartphone to head off a tantrum during the absolutely critical brain development years before school.

mikrotikker 3y ago

What about the effects of an extremely wide and extremely quick deployment of a novel vaccine (under threat of being fired)?

throwawayq3423 3y ago
What does "novel vaccine" mean?
- zmgsabst 3y ago
  That we haven’t used mRNA gene therapies to treat a virus before.
  - lostlogin 3y ago
    Maybe not that widely, but the technique seems to have had prior usage. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRNA_vaccine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRNA_vaccine
    - mikrotikker 3y ago
      In bovines yes. And they laughed at Joe Rogan for using "horse medicine"
      - throwawayq3423 3y ago
        It's been studied intensely since its discovery in the 1990s, it's not in any way a "brand new" technology.
- defrost 3y ago
  A vaccine that had a significant impact on a notable percentage of the population 24 months before widespread uptake. The Thiotimoline of vaccines. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Historical_Average_ACT_Scores.svg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Historical_Average_A... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiotimoline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiotimoline

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]