Yes, it’s no secret that high test scores are correlated with high family income, as is attendance at highly rejective colleges. That is partially what led to many schools becoming test optional well before the pandemic, including DePaul…because many schools want to increase their population of limited income students.
Agree. If the starting place is dismissing a well-respected expert’s opinion because he doesn’t work at a prestigious enough institution, then the “respectful” part might not be in the cards.
Would it hurt to reach out and ask if there is point of disagreement or misunderstanding? Apparently so.
Boeckenstedt seems to assume causation in the blog entry linked above (in the discussion building up to the graph pasted above).
The effects of wealth and ethnicity (which are tightly tied together in America) are shown in ACT data, which they make available in their product EIS.
He also seems to have an odd understanding of what “normed” means.
This is known as the “Common Yardstick” theory, and is partially correct, in the sense that the ACT and SAT are normed tests, which means a) half the people will score in the top half, and half the people will score in the bottom half, and b) your position in one administration of the test is likely to be close to your position in another.
I did have the foresight to qualify my recommendation with the respectful piece. Some aren’t yet ready to engage on the more advanced enrollment management issues yet…the sordid history of standardizing testing, race, affluence, and holistic admissions aren’t really disputed.
I’m in no position to explain Mr. Boeckenstedt’s conclusions. As I’ve stated before he’s an open, engaging person and if framed respectfully, I expect he would be happy to explain his thinking. If you don’t want to do that, he has hundreds of accessible blog posts, presentations, and interviews that explain much of his thinking, generally with supporting data.
The A in SAT meant aptitude decades ago when I took it. I guess back then it meant aptitude of knowing more English vocabulary and high school math through algebra 2 (non-accelerated 11th grade math).
Yep, aptitude was dropped in 1993. CB went with A for Assessment, but dropped that in 1997 when they decided to just go with “SAT” which doesn’t stand for anything.
“We hope this action sends a strong message . . . that it is wrong to think of the SAT as a measure of IQ,” said College Board President Donald M. Stewart, announcing that the new name is Scholastic Assessment Tests.
The change is an effort “to correct the impression among some people that the SAT measures something that is innate and impervious to change regardless of effort or instruction,” he said.
People who understand statistics completely expect the correlation between income and test scores. And they understand the reason a positive correlation is expected to exist.
There are two reasons. First, it is because there is a correlation between a person’s income and their intelligence. Simply put, a higher intelligence allows the opportunity to seek higher paying jobs, and many (but certainly not all) take advantage of this opportunity. Second, intelligence is hereditary in the same way that height is. Given these two causal reasons, it is inevitable that test scores and income would be correlated.
Now, saying they are correlated does not mean that the entire correlation is due to parental intelligence and hereditary. Part of the test score result is due to the advantages that come with parental income, including good school systems, and parental encouragement.
We don’t agree on the definition of intelligence, nor that “intelligence is hereditary in the same way that height is”, which is fundamental to this issue. But I am totally uninterested in debating it, of course. So I’ll just leave it at that.
But I do want to edit this to add that I understand statistics. I use stats in my job every day.
When the Asian kids being referred to in the video have parents selected by immigration as those who graduated from the elite universities in their countries of origin, is that a surprise?
That’s fine. But for those that would like to know about research into the heritability of intelligence, here is a relatively easy to understand published paper that looks at it using twin studies, including those raised apart. It finds that the heritability of IQ is about 0.8.
“The contribution of the parents, whether natural or adoptive, is in potentiating the child’s inherent capabilities, in creating an atmosphere of enthusiasm for learning, and in adapting their expectations to the child’s capability. The wide diversity within families emphasizes the importance of giving each child full opportunity for development, and indeed of making sure that the opportunity is taken. The ultimate goal is the maximum realization of each child’s intelligence, coupled with a sense of satisfaction and personal accomplishment in its use. There is no better way to foster such development than by a supportive and appropriately stimulating family environment.”
As the joke goes, nature or nurture, either way it’s your parents’ fault.
Dr. Steinberg explicitly says that the performance differences persist even when controlling for family income, parental education, and other factors that might be correlated.
Not sure about India, but China most certainly is, insofar as their performance on IMO, IOI etc can be considered a proxy for the depth of their talent bench. No questions about it. The competition at these events is almost exclusively between the Chinese, Chinese Americans, and a smattering of exSoviets.
My personal theory - as an exSoviet:) - is that it takes a certain level of authoritarian culture to instill a mindset that is amenable to the rigors involved in studying STEM at the deepest levels.
Spinoza was onto something with his definition of freedom as understood necessity.
