Teachers, assessment and FRC

[KHall]

Thank-you for your comments.

Lets look at it this way. We at FIRST (specifically the engineers and teachers) claim/feel that what we are doing makes a difference. Testimonials are great, but they can only have so much credibility. I’ve read testimonials from people who claim to have been abducted by aliens and flown to Venus.

So here is the skinny: If you believe something to be true, prove it. Create a hypothesis, design an experiment to test that hypothesis, collect data and analyze the results to see if it supports or denies your hypothesis. That is the essence of science. Everything else is arm waving.

The next step would be to have the results peer reviewed and published in a reputable journal. This is where I believe we fall short. We can understand the basics of designing a non-biased test that will yield statistically significant results. We can separate and measure quantitative and qualitative variables. Psychologists measures attitudes and feeling such as passion and initiative all the time, its been done, published and accepted. Teachers measure learning with much the same results.

What we don’t have here is someone with a Ph.D. and a reputation that will get the others in the Ivory Towers to peer review the research and get it published in a respectable journal. That is the key piece. I’ve suggested Dr. Sullivan as a potential person of interest, but I’m sure there are plenty more. Who are they? Can we make a list and start having the FIRST brass approach these people?

Please understand that I’m on FIRST’s side here. All the claims in this thread are valid in my opinion, I’ve seen FIRST work miracles too. But I don’t have the credentials that matter, so nobody really cares what I think.

How do we find someone like Dr. Sullivan and get that person motivated to do a study about just how FIRST impacts learning?

KHall