

Study: College Students Not Learning Much - sdizdar
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504744_162-20028739-10391703.html

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sprout
I actually took part in this study. A few notes:

1\. The exam was supposed to be administered 3 times, Freshman, Sophomore, and
Senior years. I took it my Freshman and Senior years.

2\. The exam was not a normal exam. I won't say it was pointless, it
definitely measured something, but it's hard to say exactly what. Imagine you
have to make an exam to measure "learning" and this thing was about as close
as you could come to getting one. But that's still far off the mark.

3\. The sample was not representative. Taking the exam was opt-in, and the
college put forth a variety of incentives to get people to take the exams.
Despite this, they definitely had a high drop off between sign-up-for-
everything freshmen and I'm way too busy to spend three hours taking another
exam seniors.

I believe there were schools where it was not opt-in, but even so, I can't
imagine any of the students taking this exam had grades riding on their
performance. And given that it was a single exam, it was dependent on the
students' state of mind on the particular day they took the exam. Three data
points per person, over four years. It's hard to draw any conclusions from
this data.

~~~
JesseAldridge
Could you elaborate on what the exam was like?

~~~
sprout
It was a series of reading comprehension problem-solving problems with short
answer response.

One bit was five documents relating to an environmental issue in a small town.
The exam asked the student to analyze the documents, looking for biases the
sources may have and flaws in their reasoning.

It did a good job of measuring ability to synthesize and analyze sources, but
it definitely would be harder to recognize more focused improvements in
reasoning ability.

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kenjackson
One problem is there is no incentive on the part of the college to teach much.
I've long advocated that we need output measures for colleges. Colleges are
rated on their input measures -- how competitive is it to get into the school.
But no measure of how effective they are at teaching.

As of today no one can really say where (on average) you'll learn more/better
-- at Harvard or Ohio State. All we know is that Harvard is more difficult to
get into. I find that crazy that this is still the state of higher ed.

~~~
reader5000
I think 80% of modern college value-added is signalling. Employers should
really just accept SAT scores directly, although I'm not sure if that's legal.
It would certainly be cheaper.

~~~
copper
Why isn't it legal, out of curiosity? I get to see quite a few CVs that
include the rank the applicant got in the IIT-JEE exam (for most purposes, I
find that to be a rather useless metric.)

~~~
barry-cotter
Griggs vs. Duke Power Company

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co.#Judgme...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co.#Judgment)

Since the SAT[1] is a glorified IQ test[2] the rankings from high to low by
population group go Ashkenazi Jews >> East Asians >> Caucasian >> Blacks.

The Disparate Impact legal doctrine[3] means that unless you can show business
_necessity_ any test that reliably discriminates between protected classes[4]
is automatically illegal.

The strength of this argument is weakened by the fact that TTBOMK no
equivalent law exists in the rest of the Anglosphere.

[1]And the LSAT, MSAT, GRE, GMAT etc.

[2]This isn't completely accurate for those tests that measure concrete
knowledge like the MCAT, but the correlation is still pretty high

[3]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_Impact>

[4]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class>

~~~
asdfj843lkdjs
_Since the SAT[1] is a glorified IQ test[2]_

The SAT is a wonderful test for memorization. Also how much time you spent
studying, almost as if its a... _scholastic_ test.

It it's relationship to IQ is _extremely_ vague.

~~~
barry-cotter
<http://pss.sagepub.com/content/15/6/373.abstract>

_This research established the relationship between SAT and g, as well as the
appropriateness of the SAT as a measure of g, and examined the SAT as a
premorbid measure of intelligence._

In Study 1, we used the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. Measures
of g were extracted from the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery and
correlated with SAT scores of 917 participants. The resulting correlation was
.82 (.86 corrected for nonlinearity).

 _Study 2 investigated the correlation between revised and recentered SAT
scores and scores on the Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices among 104
undergraduates. The resulting correlation was .483 (.72 corrected for
restricted range). These studies indicate that the SAT is mainly a test of g._

We provide equations for converting SAT scores to estimated IQs; such
conversion could be useful for estimating premorbid IQ or conducting
individual difference research with college students.

~~~
asdfj843lkdjs
I still recall a very brief and elegant point my pedagogy professor made by
giving all of his students an IQ test.

The test just happened to test on material none of had ever studied, for
example how to clean offal. This was a real test which people with the correct
experience had scored highly on. Us college students on the other hand, were
deemed barely functional by the same test.

The IQ test is not contrived but it does rely on _learned_ knowledge to be
able to test. So the IQ test itself is not a very good test of intelligence,
_especially_ in the case where the tool (lets say language) it's using to test
IQ is lacking in say non-native speakers.

But to get back to the SAT test, my East Asian immigrant high-school friends
with decent English - bad SAT scores. Two years later with greatly improved
English, same people - great SAT scores. And I am talking about all of the
SAT, including the math part.

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guywithabike
Maybe the problem is not the college, but the slacker kids who skim by with
the bare minimum effort.

I'm always amused when the kids who used to tease me for taking college
seriously post Facebook statuses like, "omg y cant i get a job?!?!"

~~~
mkross
"Them darn kids aint learnin cuz they aint tryin!"

Let's consider the assumption that between 36% and 45% of all undergrad
students are slackers. Sure, a bunch of students aren't learning because they
are slackers, but why there are SO MANY of them? Are there more slackers as a
percentage of the population than in the past? Is the internet/cell-
phone/facebook era changing the mentality of students to be more focused on
the short term easiest/best solution? Or maybe the percent of slackers in the
general populace is the same, but a much larger percentage of secondary
students go on to undergrad. Well, why are so many more going on in school,
especially those that are slackers? Parental/societal pressures might suggest
that going to college is just "what you do" after high school. Or maybe peer
pressure makes students continue in through school because their peers expect
it of them. Perhaps it is sheer inertia that is the driving force; our
slackers do whatever is the most expedient at the moment, so when the time
comes they'd rather go to a generic college with an undecided major than to go
and do something.

Or, (and I like this theory the most), students feel a need, from an
economical perspective, to get a degree in order to get a job. And then they
go to school, with the singular goal of earning that piece of paper so they
can get a job. At this point, "slacker" has been forced into the role by going
to school just to be able to get a job afterwards. It's a means to an end, and
incidental value is just that. At this point, it isn't just the college's
fault, but the general expectations of employers. Why do you require a college
degree? Is knowing the theory essential to doing the work or save a
substantial amount of training or ramp-up time?

~~~
dspeyer
Universities don't do much to encourage students to work hard.

You'll pass no matter what, and in many places can get an A by just cramming
for the final. Worse, many classes adjust grading standards based on how
students are doing, so anyone who studies hard is _betraying_ their
classmates.

Fraternities are given official support while study groups are left to fend
for themselves (not that much support is needed, but it would be a nice
gesture). A football team that wins a championship can expect official
schoolwide celebration, which no intellectual achievement would produce.

People are influenced by social pressure. Children are especially influenced.
And the pressures aren't really pushing toward learning.

(A secondary conclusion is that if you want to learn a lot at college, your
first act should be to find a network of friends who _do_ value learning.)

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phamilton
1) The study was done at the end of their sophmore year. 200 level course are
not that difficult.

2) The study asked if students had a class required 20 pages of writing, or 40
pages of reading. Especially in engineering, this is often just not practical.
In a senior level class, we only had ~20 pages of reading a week, but we spent
countless hours building an RTOS from the ground up. That time was so much
more effective than reading a book. As far as writing goes, I haven't written
a paper in a long time, but multiple 60 hour coding projects are pretty common
throughout a semester.

~~~
mkross
1) "After four years, 36 percent of students did not demonstrate significant
improvement, compared to 45 percent after two." Thats 36% of students who
spent four years without improving what the study authors deem as important
cognitive abilities. Perhaps they learned all of their material sufficiently
well to do XXX, but the study says they aren't, in a generalist sense, any
smarter.

2) I can't tell from the article whether these statistics were actually
influential in determining the students' scores on the test. I totally agree
that this doesn't translate well between different majors. If the scores were
affected by answering this question or the one about study habits or probably
a number of others, then I don't really see the point of the study. They
started from some sort of "if people take easier* classes, then they aren't as
intelligent" baseline and then showed that people take easier* classes...

* "easier," by their definition, has something to do with writing X pages or reading Y pages.

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rafd
I'm uncomfortable with how easily correlations are taken as causations. Will
longer assignments 'teach' better? Or, is it that the students who are more
willing to learn are also more willing to do longer assignments?

------
joshkaufman
_The findings also will likely spark a debate over what helps and hurts
students learn. To sum up, it's good to lead a monk's existence: Students who
study alone and have heavier reading and writing loads do well._

You can "lead a monk's existence" by yourself, without paying a college
$40-50k per 30-week year. Hit the books, learn as much as you can, then go out
into the real world and make things happen.

It kills me that education and credentialing are so tightly bound together in
popular perception. Learning is about what happens in your head, not
necessarily what happens in a classroom.

I'm kicking around an idea of an alternative credential for entrepreneurs,
which would legally certify you've operated a real business at a certain
profit level for a certain period of time. If you want to seek employment when
you're done, most employers would recognize that you have economically
valuable skills - above and beyond those of college graduates.

If the business takes off, you won't care about the credential... which is a
good thing. The amount you'd learn pursuing such a credential would put most
college programs to shame.

~~~
MaxGabriel
"See the sad thing about a guy like you is in fifty years you'll start doin'
some thinking on your own and you're gonna come up that there are two
certainties in life: one, don't do that. And two, you dropped a hundred and
fifty grand on a fuckin' education you could have got for a dollar fifty in
late charges at the public library"

-Matt Damon, Good Will Hunting

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymsHLkB8u3s>

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lifestyleigni
I have a problem with the metrics they use:

20 pages of writing, or 40 pages of reading

They are going on the assumption that increased pages of writing and increased
pages of reading is a metric for amount learned.

There are so many lurking variables at play here. The attribution of cause and
effect here to these arbitrary variables is an over simplification fallacy of
what's really going on and why.

~~~
sidek
Also, 20 pages of, say, Spivak's Calculus is simply more than , say, 20 pages
of Michel de Montaigne essays.

------
Legion
For some people, college is truly a joke of an academic experience.

I worked a couple of on-campus jobs at the school I attended. One of those
jobs was in the department of Recreation Administration. I couldn't believe it
was a major that people paid money to go to school and study. I couldn't
believe the tests I photocopied were real - I could easily pass them, and what
I didn't know was obviously information easily obtained from a minimal amount
of reading of the textbooks.

It was comical, really, although the parents paying the same tuition for that
that my parents paid for my CompSci education shouldn't find it funny. It
seems to me like there are an increasing number of "paths of low resistance"
through college.

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symptic
The problem isn't that college-aged kids are performing poorly. The problem is
that we've raised kids in an educational system that is dying and underfunded
at the early levels. We cut physical education, art, music, cancel recess, and
expect kids kids to grow up fine while learning subpar English and Maths.
Universities have to lower their standards to help provide a job market for
these children with under-developed fundamentals.

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adambourg
These people are idiots. 2300 college students interviewed... Think about that
for 1 minute. That's a sample of less then 10% the size of my university.
There are hundreds or even thousands of schools with over 10,000 students.

Where has this sample been taken? What colleges? How diverse was the
population? Socio-economic statuses? These are all big concerns I have with
this statistic. Also, what are they measuring? English? Maths? Sciences?

With all the high school emphasis on getting into college, I would not expect
a serious improvement in the maths and English. If it's looking at general
stuff, then yes, I would not expect a substantial shift, if we're talking
about fields and careers then this is shocking data.

Given all that. I am a college junior, I have learned so much about math
(calculus), science, computer science and how to solve problems. More so then
I ever could have dreamed. College has opened me up to many new learning
opportunities.

While the fault could be at the college, more then likely; however, it's on
the student, not the school.

~~~
idm
> These people are idiots. 2300 college students interviewed... Think about
> that for 1 minute.

Common sense is no substitute for an intro stats class. 2300 is plenty.

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gexla
People just aren't taking the right kind of classes. A math class which is a
higher level than anything you have taken before is sure to teach you
something. A writing class which is higher level than anything you have taken
before (not as easy to measure, this is more due to a better quality
instructor) is sure to teach you something. Along with a lot of writing is
usually paired up with a lot of reading, which is also sure to teach you
something. Outside of those areas...

It's the three R's; readin, ritten, rithmatic. Unfortunately, a lot of
programs don't require those areas. People who aren't heavy into those areas
in college should probably be going to a vocational school rather than a
university.

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jchonphoenix
Is not taking a class that requires you to write 20 pages or read 40 pages
within the last semester an issue?

I find that, as people in technical majors progress through the years, they
take less and less humanities and more and more major specific classes.

It might be worrying if math majors didn't take a class that requires problem
sets in the last semester. Or english majors didn't take classes that required
writing. But to suggest that students aren't learning because they aren't
taking courses relevant to their major is a biased assertion.

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jakeg
Well since critical thinking and "complex reasoning" are impossible to measure
on a standardized test, the entire article is pretty much pointless. I.E. the
media needs to stop acting like the important effects of education can be
measured easily and en masse and therefore reported on in their articles.

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lynx44
I don't agree with the approach this article uses to gauge learning.

For one thing, it completely puts down science and math courses. In a
multivariable calc class, we didn't have reading or writing (though I did have
more than 40 pages of homework!)

Second, it's a bit arbitrary.

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davidwparker
I know that for my undergrad, college seemed to be an extension of high
school- and both the slackers and the non-slackers went to college. Now that I
am in grad school, I don't notice many, if any, slackers.

Does anyone have any similar stories?

~~~
zerokyuu
I don't know the actual statistics, but I heard that nearly everyone from my
high school went to college after graduating. Even though I got good grades, I
was actually a bit of a slacker myself in high school; mostly because I did a
lot of extra curricular activities (ice/roller hockey, drumline, cello,
studied Japanese and computer stuff). However, I heard somewhere that about
30% of the kids from my high school would drop out from college in their first
two years. This seems about right based on what I saw on Facebook. Some of
them were slackers, some of them must have had no interest in college and
probably shouldn't have bothered going.

Anyway, I'm in grad school now, and I haven't noticed many slackers (maybe a
grad student taking a weekend off?). Although, I didn't really notice many
slackers in college either. That may be because I went to a research-focused
University to study engineering.

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idm
College rocked my world, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. You get out
what you put in.

~~~
davidu
This. And the fact that lots of people go to college who aren't mature enough
to know that. Or they go because their parents make them and so they party and
dick around. The reality is that many kids who go to college --- shouldn't.

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patrickgzill
I think if you "compare and contrast" how you learned $x (something you
learned outside of school), and how subjects are taught in college, that might
lead to some insight.

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Bud
I'm not impressed that this article couldn't even make it ten words without
making a major error.

Especially given the headline.

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tybris
College isn't about learning, it's about developing intellectually.

~~~
barry-cotter
I challenge you to develop that statement, so that I know what you meant to
say rather than imputing it. An uncharitable interpretation would be that
college could be taught with no resources beyond those available at secondary
school, since in a number of fields it would be quite possible to use the
secondary school intellectual tools to construct your own knowledge, e.g. 30
motivated Math students might be able to rederive up to Calculus II or III
given four years to do it.

~~~
tybris
At college, you develop yourself intellectually, through interaction with
peers, professors, understanding complex material, finding the fundamental
insights that underly your field, building an maintaining a network,
developing your skill as a leader and/or a team player, learning how to read
and write at a sophisticated level, and how to go beyond these things. Your
brain is a living organ that needs training like a muscle, but it is
incomparably more complex than any other part of your body. You need to run
with the best to be able to follow their footsteps, to foster the techniques
and gain the insights that will lead you into a wealthy, interesting and happy
life and perhaps one that can change the world. You don't need to be aware of
all of this when you're in it, it happens in the ingenious way in which
college has developed itself, even if you drop out.

I don't know which philosopher is to blame for the idea that a brain is some
kind of black box and school is there to put knowledge in it, but I'd send him
back to college.

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stretchwithme
declining quality and costs rising faster than inflation. hmmm, I wonder what
entity could be responsible for distorting yet another industry.

