New ACT Report - "Ready to Succeed"
New in today's Inside Higher Ed - a story on a new ACT report, Ready to Succeed. The refrain here will sound familiar. The definitions of "readiness" for college composition here are entirely linked to mechanics, syntax, and organization (and maybe they would say, "But the content comes in the separate "reading" outcomes, but I think that's just wrong). And here's the "research" that supports their assertions:
Our research has documented levels of proficiency on the EXPLORE®, PLAN®, and ACT
score scales that are associated with success in college—defined as a 50/50 chance of earning a course grade of B or better or a 75 percent chance of earning a C
or better—in typical entry-level college courses.
It probably comes as no surprise that EXPLORE and PLAN are ACT products - and so is the ACT, of course. What other industry supports its products with research based on those products? What STUNS me is that few outside of academe seem to point out the circular logic here.
The regularity with which these reports appear is depressing. Clearly, we need to ratchet up some studies of our own -- with better methodology and smarter analysis and discussion. This is basically a marketing tool for the K-12 curriculum that ACT is marketing... but why don't audiences recognize that? (Rhetorical question there... I know a lot of the reasons, but I find them depressing, too.)
I posted a response (which I was going to paste in here, but I copied something else and nuked the response from the copy memory, and I can't "back" to it in my browser anymore). Talking points in the response: college compositionists have higher standards than those outlined in the ACT report because ours include *content* (also put in the URL for the WPA Outcomes Statement), and the circular logic piece. Check for that on the IHE web site...
Our research has documented levels of proficiency on the EXPLORE®, PLAN®, and ACT
score scales that are associated with success in college—defined as a 50/50 chance of earning a course grade of B or better or a 75 percent chance of earning a C
or better—in typical entry-level college courses.
It probably comes as no surprise that EXPLORE and PLAN are ACT products - and so is the ACT, of course. What other industry supports its products with research based on those products? What STUNS me is that few outside of academe seem to point out the circular logic here.
The regularity with which these reports appear is depressing. Clearly, we need to ratchet up some studies of our own -- with better methodology and smarter analysis and discussion. This is basically a marketing tool for the K-12 curriculum that ACT is marketing... but why don't audiences recognize that? (Rhetorical question there... I know a lot of the reasons, but I find them depressing, too.)
I posted a response (which I was going to paste in here, but I copied something else and nuked the response from the copy memory, and I can't "back" to it in my browser anymore). Talking points in the response: college compositionists have higher standards than those outlined in the ACT report because ours include *content* (also put in the URL for the WPA Outcomes Statement), and the circular logic piece. Check for that on the IHE web site...
posted by Linda Adler-Kassner at 5:14 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home