From: julie@cucbs.chem.columbia.edu (Julie Wright)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Observations from male studentnt
Date: 30 Sep 92 16:39:50 GMT
	<1992Sep30.041828.1907@netcom.com>
Organization: The Cultural Elite

payner@netcom.com (Rich Payne) writes:
>hans@Software.Mitel.COM (Hans Johnsen) writes:
>>zorro@picasso.ocis.temple.edu (John Grabowski) writes:

>[stuff stored in /dev/null]
[discussion of "intelligence tests" (whatever that means, here) being used
to evaluate a person's qualifications for a job, etc.]

>>>If they are not worth much to measure intelligence (and I personally agree
>>>that they're not), then why are they used so much?  And why are they
>>This is a good question, to which I have no answer.

>>>"overlooked" by admissions officers at most universities when it comes to
>>>blacks and Hispanics?  

>>The real problem with intelligence tests is that they are poor cross
>>cultural predictors of intelligence, therefore this type of policy is
>>(on the surface) quite reasonable. The problem is that race and culture,
>>while related, are not equivalent.

>Wait a minute, I though SAT scores were used. I have been in many colleges
>and universities, and never took an IQ test. And my understanding is that
>SAT scores do correlate well with college/university performance.

>What am I missing here?

	I think they *are* talking about SATs and the like, although it
is worth noting that the SAT is not supposed to be an intelligence test
like the IQ test(s?).  
	I also understood that SAT scores correlated at least somewhat
with college/university performance.  However, it is apparently a consistent
pattern that girls score lower on SATs (I think this is total score; not
sure whether girls do better on the verbal section or not) than boys do,
and yet they get better grades in college on average than boys do.  I
don't know whether the same pattern applies to blacks and Hispanics -- that
SATs are not an ideal predictor to evaluate their abilities and potential
in college compared to WASPs, say -- but it certainly wouldn't surprise
me to find out that that's the reason admissions officers act as described
above, as Hans seems to indicate.  
	The point is, if SATs are being used as a predictor of future 
performance because there's a high statistical correlation between SAT
scores and future performance, rather than because colleges demand that
their students be talented at filling in little circles in answer to 
trivial questions, and if SATs are found to underrate the future performance
of girls/black students/whoever, it seems reasonable to make some corrections
in the way the tests are evaluated.  It would be terrific if someone
would make a test that could perfectly predict future performance, or ability,
or something, but since the people at ETS are not deities, they haven't
managed to do that.  Admissions officers are presumably doing the best
they can to evaluate the information they're given in order to try to get
the best possible class (not that THEY'RE infallible either), and if they
went strictly by SATs, they'd screen out a lot of girls who would have done
better in college than the boys they would let in.  (And keep in mind that
SATs are hardly the only thing they evaluate.)
	
---Julie
-- 
| BODY IMAGE GROUP SELF-APPRECIATION DAY.  "uhm... take your legs for    |
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