Weiye Loh's Library tagged Test → View Popular, Search in Google

Sep

2011

What Do Test Scores Tell Us? - NYTimes.com

Tests used to be just for evaluating students, but now the testing of students is used to evaluate teachers and, in fact, the entire educational system. On an individual level, some students and parents have noticed a change — more standardized tests and more classroom and homework time devoted to preparation for them.

So what exactly do test scores tell us?

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/...what-do-test-scores-tell-us

- Preview

Test Academia Education Validity Reliability Methodology

Aug

2011

Are Smart People Getting Smarter? | Wired Science | Wired.com

The Flynn effect has always been tinged with mystery. First popularized by the political scientist James Flynn, the effect refers to the widespread increase in IQ scores over time. Some measures of intelligence — such as performance on Raven’s Progressive Matrices in Des Moines and Scotland — have been increasing for at least 100 years. What’s most peculiar is how scores have increased:

1) Scores have increased the most on the problem-solving portion of intelligence tests.
2) Verbal intelligence has remained relatively flat, while non-verbal scores continue to rise.
3) Performance gains have occurred across all age groups.
4) The rise in scores exists primarily on those tests with content that does not appear to be easily learned.

www.wired.com/...e-smart-people-getting-smarter

- Preview

IQ Intelligence Test Measurement

While one might assume that IQ scores could increase over time in terms of crystallized intelligence — the part of the test that measures particular kinds of knowledge, such as being able to count or vocabulary words — it’s actually increased on measures of fluid intelligence, which is the ability to solve abstract problems. This has led some psychologists, such as Ian Dreary, to conclude that “large differences in scores [between generations] are demonstrated in just those situations where similarity would be expected.” Flynn, meanwhile, marveled at the magical constancy of the effect: “It’s as if some unseen hand is propelling scores upward,” he wrote.
. In recent years, many psychologists have embraced the “multiplicity hypothesis” which argues that the Flynn effect is explained by a long list of factors, such as improvements in early education (especially for girls), removal of lead paint, increased sophistication of tests, better test taking attitudes and adequate nutrition.
3 more annotation(s)...
- What makes this mystery particularly noteworthy is that many of the explanations for the Flynn effect seem particularly relevant to the left side of the bell curve, or those with below average scores. This suggests that most of the intelligence gains have come from solving low hanging fruit, fixing those glaring societal inequalities that meant millions of children lacked access to adequate food, education and medical care. Since we’ve made progress on these problems, one might suppose that the Flynn effect would start to fade, at least in developed nations. (All the low hanging fruit is gone, as Tyler Cowen might say.) Sure enough, some studies have concluded that the Flynn effect has begun to disappear in Denmark, Norway and Britain.
- the Flynn effect doesn’t appear to be solely caused by rising scores among the lowest quartile. Rather, it seems to be just as prevalent among the top 5 percent. The smartest are getting smarter.
- What might be causing this aspect of the Flynn effect? Obviously, it’s harder to explain using the low hanging fruit hypothesis, since these students (even in 1981) were probably well fed and had access to math education. This leads the scientists to focus on new forms of “environmental stimulation” as a likely explanation:
  
  Rowe and Rodgers (2002) noted that “If the rising mean were driven by the smart getting smarter, then the change might reflect the introduction of some qualitatively novel form of environmental stimulation. If the overall distribution increased in pace, the cause would lie in processes that affected everyone equally.” We find the rising mean of the entire distribution is partly driven by the smart getting smarter. This suggests some form of environmental stimulation may be at work in the right tail.

Mar

2011

Singapore M.D.: Arrogance of ignorance 2

The truth is not all screening tests are equal, and more importantly, even when a screening test is accurate (yes, I chose to use this term because I am lazy) and we are able "determine the health condition of an individual", it did not necessarily mean that it was cost-effective to screen the population at large, or indeed a specific patient. Unfortunately, if someone was in a position that "the costs of these tests are a big burden" to him or her, an accurate diagnosis may just be the beginning of more financial burden...

singaporemd.blogspot.com/...arrogance-of-ignorance-2.html

- Preview

Screening Health Care Diagnosis Test Measurement Validity Governmentality

The truth is not all screening tests are equal, and more importantly, even when a screening test is accurate (yes, I chose to use this term because I am lazy) and we are able "determine the health condition of an individual", it did not necessarily mean that it was cost-effective to screen the population at large, or indeed a specific patient. Unfortunately, if someone was in a position that "the costs of these tests are a big burden" to him or her, an accurate diagnosis may just be the beginning of more financial burden...
But the cost-effectiveness of screening tests are really quite a technical issue that we cannot expect laymen (or even all doctors) to understand - that's not what bothered me about this letter. What bothered me was how a layman can think that a bunch of doctors and statisticians sitting in MOH can be blind to the benefits of "all cancer screenings as well as all tests to detect heart disease", which are so obvious to him.