[HN Gopher] ACT Test Scores Drop to Lowest Levels in More Than 3...
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ACT Test Scores Drop to Lowest Levels in More Than 30 Years
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 70 points
Date : 2022-10-16 18:26 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| cryptodan wrote:
| The ACT like all standardized testing is worthless. I git an 18
| twice while my brother who took it drunk got a 21 and therefore
| received scholarships. It's a sham.
| djohnston wrote:
| What if your drunk brother was still pretty bright?
| tarboreus wrote:
| A real slam dunk argument against the ACT.
| seattle_spring wrote:
| I mean... "I git an 18 twice"?
| mFixman wrote:
| How do we know that scores between different years are
| comparable?
|
| Couldn't it be that tests after the pandemic became harder?
| nomel wrote:
| That's a great question that definitely doesn't deserve
| downvotes.
|
| It appears the test method did start to change in 2020 [1], but
| it doesn't seem that these changes would obviously affect
| performance. Perhaps many/most have moved to the computer based
| testing, and there could be some disadvantage there?
|
| 1. https://www.winwardacademy.com/act-announces-big-changes-
| ret...
| mwint wrote:
| They're normalized against previous tests: when was taking
| ACTs, they would always say "one section is not counted, but
| you don't know which one it is, so do your best on everything."
| Weird thing to say, but anyway, I'd been told that one section
| is used to test upcoming questions, and includes previous test
| questions to correlate performance cross-tests. (Remember,
| there's multiple test dates per year, with multiple versions
| per date. They have to be consistent within the year as well as
| across time)
|
| I don't recall the SAT doing this, but I'd assume they're doing
| something similar.
| staticman2 wrote:
| The SATS at some point had an experimental section that was
| undisclosed: in other words students had to take it seriously
| because they didn't know what section was experimental and
| which one counted. I don't know how long this practice ran.
|
| Since the ACT tests reuse test questions, I'm guessing they
| aren't able to be transparent and you ultimately have to
| trust that the test makers know what they are doing.
| arjvik wrote:
| These days they count all four sections and add a fifth
| calibration one. I'm sure some people screw around on it, but
| they probably developed some heuristic to select only the
| students who tried on that section.
| arjvik wrote:
| Supposedly, the SAT and ACT use statistical testing to ensure
| that their scores are consistent across years.
|
| Among other measures of difficulty, they have students preview
| the questions of future tests in a fifth, ungraded section, to
| make a correlation between their scores.
| djohnston wrote:
| I wonder if GenZ is screwed because their entire development has
| been stalked by adware pillaging their dopamine receptors.
| askafriend wrote:
| Same argument was made for radio and TV. People got by.
| p0pcult wrote:
| Radio and TV didn't have algorithmic feedback loops built to
| custom-prey on said dopamine receptors, and evolve
| themselves.
| kepler1 wrote:
| Under a democratic (or let's say, public-opinion-based) system,
| who is rewarded for trying to uphold some kind of standards, when
| it doesn't benefit the majority to do so? I'm just commenting
| aside from the pandemic-related issues here, on the long
| progression of anti-testing, anti-standards pressure in the US.
|
| The majority of people aren't happy with having standardized
| tests because they block kids from feeling they have a shot at
| the top schools. But of course that's their function -- to sort.
|
| So, public pressure calls for dropping objective measurements so
| that people _feel_ better about it... but they aren 't _doing_
| better. And muddying the waters to say that everyone should have
| an equal shot at going to a top school -- for reasons other than
| academics and using the resource efficiently. And the kids just
| stagnate in performance and everyone feels good about it, until
| you get kicked in the ass by reality and you find other countries
| who don 't care so much about making people _feel_ better are
| actually passing you by.
| p0pcult wrote:
| >But of course that's their function -- to sort.
|
| Or, their function is to evaluate macro trends in education.
| criddell wrote:
| > to sort
|
| But into what categories are they sorting? What if they are
| mostly measuring who is good at taking a test?
|
| At my kids high school, they were in a program where they got
| to write a whole bunch of practice tests. From test-to-test,
| they did better and better. Some of the tests were close enough
| in time that their knowledge didn't significantly change, but
| their scores improved. I attribute that to learning answers to
| questions that pop up frequently and to being less anxious
| after writing the nth practice exam.
|
| Both of my kids did great at the tests eventually.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| If it's a writing exam, there's a skill to writing text in a
| way that will generate the best grade.
|
| I recall with AP History back in the 90s, DBQ questions
| required some training to the form before sitting for the
| exam.
| grammarnazzzi wrote:
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/
| warner25 wrote:
| Does the article talk about the fact that so many universities
| stopped requiring the ACT or SAT for admissions? It sounded like
| this was a trend pre-COVID (because of the prevailing belief that
| standardized tests discriminated against minorities and poor
| people) and like many other things was accelerated by COVID when
| test-taking became impossible. This must have had some
| interesting effects.
| rayiner wrote:
| > because of the prevailing belief that standardized tests
| discriminated against _minorities_ and poor people
|
| (if you define "minorities" to exclude the country's second
| largest, and fastest growing minority group)
| freeopinion wrote:
| IIRC, Nevada posted the lowest average. (Nevada requires the
| ACT for high school graduation.)
|
| I define Nevadans as a minority in the U.S. It is obvious
| that this standardized test discriminates against this
| minority.
|
| Don't even get me started on people taller than two meters.
| ACT won't even show that data because it is so telling.
| temple_os wrote:
| Colleges are addicted to the new normal and will never go back.
| Applications surge by tens of thousands -> colleges make more
| of the $75 application fees. Acceptance rates go down -> your
| ranking in USNews goes up. Average ACT score increases (because
| why would you submit an under average score now) -> you can
| make your school look more prestigious than it actually is. Is
| any of this good for students? Standards can only continue to
| drop so low.
|
| Just look at Harvard. Since they don't require any additional
| essays applying there is now literally just a button press away
| - wouldn't you?
| riversflow wrote:
| $75 was a lot of money to me when I was 17.
| milleramp wrote:
| What was the reason for the dip below 20 in 1991, perhaps the
| recession?
| madengr wrote:
| Per the article, it's just more kids taking it. My kids HS has
| national testing day during the school week, when I assume
| everyone takes it.
| drooby wrote:
| > More graduating students taking the ACT are also doing so
| through statewide and districtwide testing programs. For the
| class of 2022, 60% of students who took the ACT did so at least
| once through those programs, compared with 27% in 2015.
|
| > Fifteen out of the 23 states participating in the program
| _require_ students to take the ACT in their classrooms during
| regular school hours, regardless of whether they plan to apply to
| college.
|
| > The aim is to increase access to the college admissions exam to
| students who may not otherwise have the opportunity.
|
| Makes sense to me... _require_ more students to take an exam they
| otherwise wouldn't have and you will get an average lower score.
| Students that _choose_ to take the exam are more likely to be
| prepared for taking it, and thus will study more and achieve
| higher scores.
|
| Regardless. Agreed that this is potentially a good thing for
| helping highlight which schools need more assistance.
| Spivak wrote:
| I get that as a profession journalism exists to report
| happenings largely uncritically but I wish we could get the
| teeniest amount analysis because just a little thought would
| have made this a non-story or a very different headline,
| "students, don't assume your ACT scores being shown as above
| average means they'll be above average in the pool of
| applicants at university" with an explanation in the article
| that this has always technically been true but that the gap
| between the average as reported by the ACT and the average as
| seen by schools will be wider this year and here's why.
| ryanhuff wrote:
| Do you think most applicants actually consider the overall
| average, instead of the schools own published stats?
| tqi wrote:
| > journalism exists to report happenings largely uncritically
|
| Journalism exists to sell newspapers, and "just a little
| thought would have made this a non-story" is the reason the
| headline is the way it is.
| scarmig wrote:
| There's an interesting opposite effect at the university level:
| undergraduate institutions have been dropping SAT requirements,
| and then their average score goes up, as students who did or
| would do relatively badly on it don't submit it.
| lazide wrote:
| Unfortunately this drive to testing has had very concrete
| negative effects on teaching real skills - even the best
| schools now 'teach to the test', and have been skipping
| learning of practical applications or fundamentals pretty
| heavily. At least from what I've been seeing in person.
| Izkata wrote:
| Some of us were aware of this as students two decades ago.
| One of my friends had a weird way of looking at it: ignoring
| the assigned work and jumping ahead, he felt like he was
| cheating by having an easier time on tests.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| https://archive.ph/XnaQx
| ycombinatoracct wrote:
| The NAEP reported a similar treand in math and reading recently.
|
| https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/ltt/2022/
| AnthonBerg wrote:
| It's interesting to consider how one would design experimental
| controls for cognitive deficits after COVID-19 illness when
| studying academic performance at population scale.
|
| There's a pretty broad base of evidence for this btw:
| https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=7%2C39&q=cov...
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| Although it may be unpopular, tests shouldn't be weighted based
| on extrinsic factors like race, gender, ethnicity, socio-
| economics, or health condition. If particular students or
| certain demographics aren't achieving, direct help to them
| rather than lower the bar. Build achievement and excellence,
| not participation trophies. If stats decline for a few years
| due to widespread neurological damage and/or a lack of
| pedagogical impact, then it is what it is.
| AnthonBerg wrote:
| Due to a downvote, I wish to reaffirm my position and remind
| people of the guidelines which ask for discussion upon
| disagreement, not downvotes. Please also consider a word-for-
| word, literal, and charitable interpretation.
|
| I frame a question in _fact_ , the scientific basis of evidence
| for cognitive deficits after COVID-19. Peer-reviewed,
| published, established results. The question is directly
| relevant to the post, and is about how one would do the
| statistical evaluation of the potential effects of one real and
| measured thing on another real and measured thing. This is not
| an occasion for a downvote. This is a discussion which we would
| do better to have. Thank you.
| AnthonBerg wrote:
| sincerely wrote:
| You know, the same guidelines you point to also say "
| Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never
| does any good, and it makes boring reading. "
| torstenvl wrote:
| In my experience, a more productive way to do this is
| something along these lines:
|
| "Curious about those who seem to disagree: Am I missing
| something? Maybe one of my premises or assumptions is bad?"
| Izkata wrote:
| It's far, far more likely to be all the closed schools,
| skipped years, and subpar/skipped online classes that were
| pushed with unnecessary lockdowns.
| AnthonBerg wrote:
| How do you know?
|
| Is this a calculated likelihood given certain established
| premises? _How_ do you figure that injury to the physiology
| that performs cognition has a trivial impact compared to
| not showing up to school for some time? From what basis do
| we derive that certainty?
|
| We haven't done so, have we?
|
| We'd want to be sure, right?
|
| And: In what way were lockdowns unnecessary? It isn't and
| it never was safe for children to be infected. There is
| irreversible harm to children from it at an indefensibly
| high rate. It is obvious in children in my vicinity. I'm
| fairly sure my own son has lingering digestive issues after
| his bout. I may never know because _society will not look_.
|
| Nonetheless, lockdowns certainly were a bad fit to the main
| mode of transmission which is infectious aerosol.
| hoistbypetard wrote:
| FWIW, I tend to downvote comments that discuss voting very
| mechanically. It's not any position relative to the
| content... I find discussion of how we vote on comments very
| uninteresting, and I vote accordingly. I don't think I'm
| alone, and I suspect that I'll see a downvote or two for this
| one, but I felt it might be kind to point this out just the
| same.
| henrikschroder wrote:
| There are plenty of countries that _did not_ force
| unnecessary school closures and other useless covid theatre
| onto their students, and students in those countries _do not_
| exhibit the same amount of unprecedented learning loss as
| students in the US have, despite similar levels of infections
| across countries.
|
| Pandemic _policies_ are a huge elephant in the room, and it
| 's extremely annoying to see people like you trying to pin
| the blame on the pandemic itself. School closures were a
| disastrous policy, full stop. This is the price of that
| choice of policy.
| AnthonBerg wrote:
| I am talking about _an effect_. (You are talking about...
| people like me? Being extremely annoying? Because I'm not
| talking about a different aspect than the one I am talking
| about?)
|
| How can we measure this effect?
|
| _How_ do you know that it's _not the measured cognitive
| deficit after the infection_ and _only_ school closures?
| How was it measured?
|
| We'd want to analyse and investigate the effect, right?
| giantg2 wrote:
| Do you have any _relevant_ data? We can what-if all day.
| If you have data pointing to this, I would like to see
| it.
|
| Your first was a legitimate comment for discussion. The
| recent one doesn't seem interested in a _reasonable_
| discussion. The prior commenter makes a solid point and
| you get hand-wavey because there 's not a study
| supporting it... when your initial comment was just as
| theoretical (does your study show this is applicable to
| kids, at what rate, in which countries, what are their
| test score results, etc).
| AnthonBerg wrote:
| I'd invite you to take a look at the multitude of
| scientific results on cognitive impairment after
| infection and the numerous physiological mechanisms which
| are known to be at play. A number of them pop up here on
| Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&
| as_sdt=7%2C39&q=cov...
|
| Note that this is the _only_ data which has been provided
| in this discussion as far as I can see right now. What
| made the commenter's solid point a solid point? Was there
| data?
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