Timeline for Why do colleges attempt to teach students who lack prerequisite skills?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
15 events
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| Dec 11, 2021 at 18:00 | comment | added | user128581 | @DanielR.Collins The English-and-Welsh institutions known as "further education colleges" are roughly equivalent. I think (perhaps someone who works in an FE college can confirm or deny) that if someone turns up at an FE college wanting to study a STEM subject, but without having passed GCSE Mathematics, the FE college won't turn them away, but will instead have them sit GCSE Mathematics at the FE college until they do pass it, before they proceed with any more advanced STEM courses. | |
| Dec 11, 2021 at 17:09 | comment | added | Daniel R. Collins | Thanks for the cite. :-) To be clear, in the U.S. community-college system, there is simply not any such thing as a "public examination (GCSE Mathematics)" required for entry to college. Everyone is accepted, full stop. This is usually an extremely hard point to successfully communicate to non-U.S. academics. | |
| Dec 11, 2021 at 10:28 | comment | added | user128581 | Let us continue this discussion in chat. | |
| Dec 11, 2021 at 2:50 | comment | added | Karl Knechtel | Aside from which: none of the activism I've ever seen on this topic has ever suggested "avoid XYZ syntactic construct when describing the problem" (what I understand you mean by "style") or "have a specific fraction of multiple-choice questions" (my best guess as to what "format" could entail; I assume you aren't talking about typesetting). It's always "use names that are common in ABC cultures for characters in the hypotheticals". The idea that this is a serious stumbling block for someone who is supposed to be capable of solving integrals seems frankly insulting to me. | |
| Dec 11, 2021 at 2:43 | comment | added | Karl Knechtel | " If the low-end cutoff is (say) higher (to a statistically significant extent) for students from working-class backgrounds than for students from upper-class backgrounds, that indicates that there was discrimination against working-class students in the admissions process." Interesting. I've seen probably hundreds of claims of these kinds of bias, dozens of attempts to evidence them, and zero instances of this technique. That said, I'm not convinced it would demonstrate bias caused by the exam. | |
| Dec 11, 2021 at 2:40 | comment | added | Karl Knechtel | "it will have a particular style and format. Applicants with well-resourced schools and/or parents will be able to receive specific coaching for that style and format as well as being prepared for the public examinations" Disagree, in the strongest possible terms, that this represents the introduction of bias. For people who actually understand the material, "style and format" are just not relevant. Of course, wealth and resources will always get you more specific preparation anyway. But I don't buy that said preparation tends to focus on "style and format". | |
| Dec 11, 2021 at 2:09 | comment | added | user128581 | BTW, there is a nifty trick for using statistical disparities robustly to detect actual admissions bias. At a selective university, record the marks the students achieve in university assessments, after admission. The histogram of marks will exhibit a low-end cutoff, which represents what the admissions standard was. If the low-end cutoff is (say) higher (to a statistically significant extent) for students from working-class backgrounds than for students from upper-class backgrounds, that indicates that there was discrimination against working-class students in the admissions process. | |
| Dec 11, 2021 at 1:54 | comment | added | user128581 | ... Less well-resourced schools and parents will be able to prepare their students only for the style and format of the public examinations. After admission, all the students have the same de facto parent and school, i.e. the university, so the issue isn't as severe. | |
| Dec 11, 2021 at 1:52 | comment | added | user128581 | @KarlKnechtel The University doesn't have to be biased in order to introduce bias. If the university sets its own entrance exam, even if that entrance exam is, in itself, highly valid and reliable, it will have a particular style and format. Applicants with well-resourced schools and/or parents will be able to receive specific coaching for that style and format as well as being prepared for the public examinations... | |
| Dec 11, 2021 at 1:08 | comment | added | Karl Knechtel | "but it turns out to be extremely challenging to set this up in a way that doesn't introduce unacceptable social-class, ethnic, and gender bias into the admissions process." No; it's challenging to avoid people claiming that such biases were introduced. After all, if the universities can't easily write unbiased entrance questions, how are they writing unbiased problem sets and assignments? But there will always be someone around to claim that disparate statistical outcomes somehow prove a bias on the part of the university. | |
| Dec 10, 2021 at 11:38 | comment | added | user128581 | @SteveShipway Yes, similar considerations apply to English language skills (and not just among ESOL students, among native speakers too). | |
| Dec 10, 2021 at 11:35 | comment | added | user128581 | @Allure Two hypotheses. 1. GCSE exam is not a valid assessment of purported learning outcomes of GCSE course (perhaps due to too few examiners trying to assess too many candidates on too tight a timescale). 2. Students do have those skills at the moment of sitting the GCSE exam, but learn them in a manner that is not sticky, and have thoroughly lost the skills by the time they arrive at university. | |
| Dec 10, 2021 at 2:52 | comment | added | Allure | How does one pass GCSE mathematics without knowing basic math skills like the ones listed by Daniel R. Collins? | |
| Dec 9, 2021 at 23:59 | comment | added | Steve Shipway | I have seen a number of cases where students lack the required ESOL skills, either due to incompetent examiners or some sort of fraudulently obtained certification. There's no way for the college to know this beforehand. | |
| Dec 9, 2021 at 16:27 | history | answered | user128581 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |