Okay. My point, though, wasn’t that someone who *didn’t * grow up in Philly *wouldn’t * have heard of a regatta–clearly, the Dad Vail is not the only regatta, right?–but that someone who grew up in Berkeley County, South Carolina, would have a greater chance of *not * having heard of a regatta.
And I think that making the association between “Three Rivers Regatta” and “boats” would best apply if boats were explicitly mentioned in the advertisment/news report/whatever. “Water” *might * work, too, but I don’t think the connection would be as obvious without a mention of boats.
Agreed, and the shotgunning application of multi-cultural examples has become ridiculous.
I had to tutor for a freshman physics class. The new textbook problems had thrown out traditional pulleys, levers, and blocks on inclined planes to explain forces and had instead obfuscated the text with multiple variations and diagrams of "Fireman hoisting a bucket, “Dog pulling on leash around a lamppost”, “Finger pulling on aluminum can fliptop” etc. Simple vector diagrams were overlayed everywhere with crazy artwork to “enhance the concept”.
My poor student was left completely distracted and overwhelmed with extraneous inputs “but why is the ladder shorter than the wall? The ladder has six rungs in this example, but not in the picture for problem 12a?” assuming (justifiably) that everything was important because if the text makes a big deal about pulling on a chain in example 1, and pulling on a leather leash in example 2, she was misunderstanding something!
Look. I don’t mind illustrative examples to supplement concepts, but don’t make them the damn foundation for defining the concept!
Damn it, you’ve got me on a technicality. Since I used the word “warning” within the text, I guess that second post was a warning by my own definition.
From here (incidentally, a different page in the same website provided by OtakuLoki’s cite #1):
RUNNER: MARATHON ::
A) envoy: embassy
B) martyr: massacre
C) oarsman: regatta
D) referee: tournament
E) horse: stable
Correct answer is C, of course. The College Board and ETS still catch hell for this… although, as the link points out, the item has not been used in at least 13 years… at least 17 years given that the article is from 2003.
Your first “cite” is someone’s blog, where they discuss some report by a single psychologist about how they think that the SATs could be biased. Then it discusses a report which appears to rebut some of the claims…
The second “cite” actually says the following:
Hmm…
The third “cite” says this disturbing thing:
First, judges are not scientists. Second, the above note which seems fairly biased itself, appears to say that “if you don’t like what a test tells you, play the race card and sue,” as it gives a sweeping statement of “Groups concerned about civil rights should use this argument to oppose the use of tests to make high-stakes decisions, such as school graduation or grade promotion.”
I searched further and can find are things like the following.
…which says nothing about re-writing it to eliminate racial bias. HOWEVER, reading further, we find this telling statement.
So what conclusions do we draw from this, especially the last sentence? Was the test found to be biased, or suspected of it by a minority of researchers? Was the test changed to address those concerns, or changed for other reasons? Were the changes substantive, or did they do all that they could do?
I don’t know, and I’m not doing any more of someone else’s legwork. I’m going to assume therefore that it falls into the category of “some researchers thought it might, and it was changed, but not necessarily in response to those criticisms, and it may or may not have made a difference.” I don’t say it isn’t biased, or wasn’t, because I’m not an education researcher nor researching this topic - but I don’t see the evidence for saying it was, or is.
Since you cannot back up your original statement, you may want to consider that your belief may at a minimum need some slight modification, and at a maximum may be in error. Perhaps?
I’ll admit, my belief that the tests are biased is based mostly on statements my sister, an education researcher, has made to me. I am not an education researcher, myself - so I’d never looked for the studies prior to this thread.
I did make statements that I can’t back up at this time. That I made them with the belief that I was passing on good reports doesn’t change that. I’ll have to eat my words at this point since, like you, I’m not involved enough to want to dig for the actual studies that are out there, one way or the other. (And, admittedly, I don’t have the stats background to be able to appreciate the studies even if I did dig them out.)
(A little nervous…putting a toe into the Pit for the first time…)
Finally, a concrete example of a “biased” test question. Now, I’ve read through the thread, and I have to say…
How it that an example of “bias”? Isn’t that just an example of “not knowing the meaning of the words”? I understand the point of their argument, but come on! When I took the SAT (13 years ago) I did very well on the English portion. Why? Because I read like a fiend! A test like the SAT cannot really be studied for and is designed to test multiple skills in a single question.
The analogies test a few things that I’m aware of - logic, relationships between concepts and, yes, vocabulary. There are plenty of words that are outside of my “culture” that I am familiar with. Isn’t one of the points of education to be well-rounded?
To sum up the SATs - if your vocab sucks, your test scores suck. Read a fuckin’ book, listen to the news and pay attention to the world around you!
Black people aren’t familiar with boating? So what - I’ve never been boating my life, and I’m fully aware of what a regatta is. Even from my lower-middle class household. Even in high-school. Plus, that is an awfully wide brush to paint an entire “culture” with, isn’t it?
If teachers are now trying to wiggle out of actually being intelligent and engaged, then Og help us all…
Look in the mirror,** Tommy**. And kindly stop misstating what I say. One would have thought you would have learned your lesson from the other thread. Read the damn words on the screen, go by them. Not what you think is in my mind. If you insist on the latter, tap into what is in my mind as you read this. Did you get it? Good. Now feel free to warn or ban me for a thought-violation in GD.
I will see if he is done with the book. Or try to get the examples from him over the phone.
I have responded to your posts. You have introduced the personal element. I have not figured out whether this is deliberate on your part or whether you simply cannot help yourself, (although it is pretty much the way you behave in nearly all discussions). If you do not like being called on your behavior, change it.
Some of the old SATs (and some of the old GREs, I’m not sure if this still done on GRE) have a word given that one must pick the definition for in a multiple-choice list. There was no context given.
I am giving it as an example of cultural bias simply because it does fit the criteria–sure, people in PA might know what it is, but in the extremely-rural Southern place I grew up, I doubt many people–even some of the area’s well-read residents–knew what a regatta was. It’s generally not a typical Southern thing, or at least it was not over 20 years ago when I was young.
I haven’t checked out the link yet, so I can speak only to this question.
Yes, of course the correct answer is “C,” but (and I’m honestly not trying to push the envelope here or lend credence to the claims of the MA teachers, at least not without knowing more) I can actually see how someone, not knowing what a regatta is (even if they know what an oarsman is), and making the association runner + marathon = sports, might, making the association that referee + tournament = sports, choose “D”.
What in holy hell is natto? Do I want to know? (I DO know what a regatta is).
I thought culture bias showed up in standardized (elementary) school tests like this: What color are bananas? (yellow or brown? depends on the ablility of your store to get fresh produce). Things like that. I remember learning about culture bias in Psych in college and that was one example used. Another was the color of raw meat (pinkish red or gray) but that one completely grossed me out.
How could a kid today not know what a cookie looks like? If she doesn’t now, she most certainly will when she goes to pre-school. TV ads, magazine ads, other kids’ snacks–she will understand “small, round cake like object with darker dots=cookie”.
I remember my son had to state where a boy was in a drawing. The drawing showed a boy, a couch and a doorway. The POV was boy/couch/doorway. To #2 son, the boy was in front of the couch–because he was in the foreground of the picture. But the answer was that the boy was BEHIND the couch, because the POV was supposed to oriented from the doorway.
The kindergarten teacher agreed with me that it was a lousy test picture. But even that doesn’t show cultural bias (unless the test makers were proprioceptionist).
I have mixed thoughts about culture bias, but I tend toward it’s BS. In any vocabulary standardized test, there are clues given for the meaning. How can math be culturally biased? I’m a math moron, but it wasn’t because I was marginalized–I just didn’t (and still don’t) get it.
But that’s not even a proper analogy. It has to be “C” by default, if nothing else. You look at the rest and see that they don’t work. Then you deduce that it must be “C”.
All I am saying is that the regatta question was taken away by ETS simply because some people (whether test-takers or test-vetters) thought it smacked of cultural bias. I can see their point. I can also see the point that being well-read can help you know what a regatta is, true. But I believe someone asked for an example of cultural bias, and that is one of the most well-known examples of cultural bias.
eleanorigby, I was also given the bananas example when I took a class based on the psychology of standardized tests.
Another thing, when I worked as a graduate student tutor, I found that many students taking elementary statistics did not know the basic facts of a 52-card deck–like what face cards were, how many suits there were, what the suits were, etc. Often I had to teach college students the basics of a 52-card deck before they could understand stats questions involving them. Now, is that a racial bias? Not from what I observed–it just seemed that some kids had never played a card game, or played them so seldom that they had no clue about the mechanics. It seemed to actually be an overachievers’ issue–many of them had been pushed by their parents (or themselves) for so long that they didn’t play a lot of games.
As to the issue in the OP–I don’t know all the details, so I can’t comment. It is certainly possible that the test is biased, but it’s equally likely in my mind that this is bullshit. I do think it’s worth investigating any test, however, in which one or a few demographic groups do worse than the rest and trying to isolate what factors might be in play.
Say, I want you to know, I didn’t choose to nitpick what you said for any personal reason. I happened to have been in a pretty heavy discussion on this exact topic with some folks just this week, and it was fresh in my mind.
And you could be spot-on right, too, in what you said. I just wanted to know if it was something that could be backed up, or if you had some special insight/experience on the issue. I’m not sure what I believe - I think it’s possible for word problems to be biased in all sorts of ways, but I believe it’s almost certainly unconscious, and I’m also uncertain to what extent it can be eliminated and still have word problems that have a connection with the Real World.
Maybe they don’t need to be, but when I make word problems for one of my classes, I always try to tie them to real-world things, knowing I reckon that I might use words/phrases that someone might not know. The answer, of course, is that if a student raises a hand and says “what does T250 mean?”, I’m there to answer it so they can finish the question. On the SAT, however, that luxury does not exist. So maybe they really do need to be made as generic as possible.
Well, technically you CAN, if you don’t mind drowning.
I think part of the problem with the lower grades and scores among minorities is self-defeatism. How many times have we heard of black kids being scorned by their peers, accused of “acting white?” How insulting is that?
Not to mention the dozens of goofy teen summer love type movies or TV specials from Disney to BET and from Frank and Annette’s time to current day frequently include a regatta in their “plot”. I see lots of “they say” and “it’s common knowledge” but I have yet to see a solid example of cultural or race bias.
…nearly all discussions WITH YOU. I suggested more than once that maybe you should just NOT respond to me except for official Mod business. Guess that’s too much to ask. That you can’t quell the persnickety, captious demon that inhabits you—at least when it comes to me. Seriously, dude, you’ve got a problem. There are some posters that don’t get along. What do they do? They simply avoid each other. Seems reasonable. Why not try it? It will be more pleasant for you, immeasurably more pleasant for me, and more pleasant for the rest of the posters that don’t have to ignore these mini hijacks everytime I have to correct your divination and reading skills when it comes to my posts. Or your lame attempts to justify actions that are simply your personal crusade against me. If you don’t know what I’m talking about here, please refer yourself to that other thread.
