Kevin Drum on the kids these days
THE KIDS THESE DAYS....PART 476....Here's the latest international report card on how American kids are doing in science and math. Short answer: not badly, really. According to the latest TIMSS report, eighth grade Asian kids outscore everyone, and American kids outscore nearly everyone who's not Asian (only Hungary, England, and Russia do slightly better). The story in science is about the same. TIMSS doesn't conduct their tests in every country, but among the countries that do worse than the U.S. are Australia, Sweden, Italy, Norway, and Israel.
Full results here.
I comment.
I'm delighted.
However, I do have to note that the TIMSS test is mostly a multiple choice. Students in the USA have practice with the format. I teach in Italy and I can assure you that Italian students just don't know how to deal with multiple choice questions. It is a specific skill and not really related to knowledge about or understanding of math and science.
Also, in the past, the USA had extraordinary inequality in TIMSS scores. Not surprising given decentralized budgets and curricula, but a huge national problem.
Stil great news.
As to the incomprehensible graphs, I can assure you that about the most intellectually difficult task I ever attempted was figuring out how the TIMSS people processed the data.
update: background on TIMSS and other international studies of student achievement
here.
The word I hear about the kids these days is that they are just frighteningly knowledgeable, hard working, polite, self confident and well rounded (and must sleep 4 hours a night).
As to our generation (I am 48) I think we were totally like wasted by the aftershocks of the 50s. I personally enjoyed a good bit of experimental progressive education (I mean in school) which might braden the mind but is not good for TIMSS scores. Also marijuana. I once discussed SAT scores with a fellow high school student. I argued that the decline was meaningless (I forget my argument). He said "I think it is real and happened for 2 reasons marijuana and TV." Maybe with cable, parents can get kids to watch the less stupid channels (some parents not me).
update:
Kevin Drum requested more details on Italian testsThere is no Italian equivalent of the SAT. Students are admitted to a degree program (say economics or philosophy) not to the University so entrance exams are field specific. More importantly, they didn't exist until realtively recently (there was open admission for students with a high school degree).
I have two daughters and they never took multiple choice tests. I also have examined University students using multiple choice tests (not my idea). They were totally hopeless about, for example, checking for "d) all of the above" and not marking a) because it was true. I mean it was grim.
The difference is more extreme than you can imagine or believe. The tradition in Italy is that most exams are oral (I am not kidding). Also students seem to have been taught to recite the 5 pages from the textbook which are most related to the question they are asked.
On US vs Italian high schools, obviously Italian high schools are more rigorous (I mean US high school is very exceptional as is the fact that most people in the US completed high school way back in the 20s). However, there was a comment by Italian students who were in the US on an exchange program that with multiple choice tests one has to think. Compared to learning by rote and reciting that is really true.
So what do I mean by "rigorous". It is very simple ... total hours of work required to pass (in school plus homework). Rigor is not reduced if the hours are totally wasted memorizing facts which will be forgotten rather than actively using facts to test theories (that way students learn how to reason and also remember the facts).
I have more information from an interview of an actual Italian student, my younger daughter. She is sure she has answered multiple choice questions on tests (I thought otherwise)and regularly does them on homework (although these are mostly true false questions). However, she also had only one written test per semester per subject !?!? the rest of evaluation was based on oral exams (called interrogazioni). The word "test" in Italian means "entrance exam". Such "tests" are by multiple choice, because no matter how much one detests multiple choice exams, if one has thousands of exams to grade one choses a multiple choice test.
Now rigorous also refers to how advanced the curriculum is. My 11 year old daughter is solving problems with 2 linear equations and two variables in 6th grade. Not her father's basic math education.
Now the problem Italian students have with multiple choice questions might very well be that you can't BS your way through them *and* it might be that some thought is required and parroting memorized text doesn't fill in the right oval. That is, I think that my students have been taught in the wrong wrong wrong way (for one thing I have to re-teach university students studying economics how to solve 2 linear equations with 2 variables). However, the TIMSS tests might underestimate their knowledge, because they include a lot of multiple choice questions (about 2 out of 3 questions IIRC).
update: Pulled back from comments
I wonder if there are not other factors at work here
1. drop out rates
2. number of subjects (this test was just on maths and science).
# posted by Blogger reason : 10:04 AM
OK first TIMSS aims to avoid sample selection due to dropping out. They test students who are young enough that they are required to be in school. Another testing effort -- PISA -- tests people age 16, just before they are allowed to drop out.
This raises another concern. My impression is that the real relatively low study effort in the US is in high school. In other countries (except maybe Canada) high school attendance was very far from universal until relatively recently. Thus the concept was academic education for the elite. Now in most countries attendance is roughly up to US levels (so that not getting a higher seconday degree is the exception not the rule) but the programs remain demanding.
In Italy, the fraction of current cohorts who complete upper secondary education is still around 50% (it's up around 80% in France IIRC). This is just not at all like graduating from high school. There is a very serious final exam with outside examiners -- teachers in an Italian high school equivalent are not the final judges of whether they have taught their students.
On fields, this is a problem. However it is very very hard to make an internationally comparable test in humanities -- OK lets not be pretentious -- reading comprehension. Basically translating the passage to be read, the multiple choice question and the proposed answers is impossible. It is not enough that the original and the translation have the same meaning -- it is necessary that it is equally difficult to understand this meaning.
Translating a reading comprehension test is roughly as difficult as translating poetry -- that is roughly impossible.
Now any international test on history or literature or whatever is just impossible -- different countries have different views on which literature is great and which history is important (also opinions differ on e.g. who won the war of 1812 and why it was fought). the M and S in TIMSS are based mostly on the fact that people agree on math and science.