Bloodless Coup

Theory

The beginnings of a scientific project are scratching around in my head, based on the task of grading over the past few days.

Theory: Intelligence is not only associated with the quality of essays, but has direct influence on the choice of essay question.

Definitions: Exam is composed of four essays, of which students choose two to answer. The exam is closed book.

Hypothesis 1: Intelligence of test taker has a direct positive relationship with the score of essay.

Hypothesis 2: Intelligence has a positive, slightly skewed parabolic relationship with the choice (by difficulty) of the test question and choice to attend class/read.

Hypothesis 3: Intelligence has a positive geometric relationship to score on essay when mediated by choice (see hypothesis 2).

I suppose I could have shortened it to the following research question: why do only the Honors students and bottom feeders choose the complicated, sophisticated questions?

The preliminary conclusions are:

1) Honors students recognize the challenge and are up to it, not only choosing but acing the hardest questions.

2) Most of the average students are scared off by the hardest questions, and migrate to the simply hard questions.

3) The chronic truants/non-readers, not being able to distinguish between the challenge level of the questions, take a shot in the dark, some hitting the "simply hard" questions and scoring at the low end of normal, and some hitting the "hardest" questions and scoring in the very pits of despair.

This distribution of essay choice by, shall we say, skill level, produces a geometric distribution where the chronic truants/non-readers who choose the hardest questions anchor the final grade distribution with scores in the 30% range. There is a rapid increase into the 50%-65% range (mixing high chronic truants/non-readers with low average), with the modal score of the average students somewhere around 74%-78%, that tapers off through the 80% to low 90% range to a rare few at the peak of 97%-100%. [note: While not an exact representation, the inverse of this line hits in the ballpark.]

Or maybe I'm overthinking it.

Posted by binky at October 27, 2005 07:31 PM | TrackBack | Posted to The Academy