Posted on 12/19/2002 3:08:50 AM PST by kattracks
(CNSNews.com) - The college seniors of today have no better grasp of general knowledge than the high school graduates of almost half a century ago, according to the results of a new study.
The average of correct responses for modern college seniors on a series of questions assessing "general cultural knowledge" was 53.5 percent compared with 54.5 percent of high school graduates in 1955, according to a survey by Zogby International.
The Zogby poll of 401 randomly selected college seniors was conducted in April for the Princeton, N.J.-based National Association of Scholars and released Wednesday.
"The average amount of knowledge that college seniors had was just about the same as the average amount of knowledge that high school graduates had back in the 1950s," said NAS President Stephen H. Balch.
Balch noted that the high school grads of half a century ago performed better than today's college seniors on history questions, while contemporary students fared better on questions covering art and literature, with no appreciable difference on geography questions.
The questions asked in the April poll by Zogby were virtually the same as questions asked by the Gallup Organization in 1955, with a few questions being slightly modified to reflect history.
"The questions were just about identical, as identical as we could make them," said Balch. "In most cases, they were absolutely identical."
Balch attributed the stagnation of performance on general knowledge questions to several factors, including a decreased emphasis on general knowledge in high school, placing colleges and universities in the position of having to fill academic gaps among students entering college.
"This is fundamental knowledge that everyone should have and if your students are being admitted without it, then that only reinforces the need for you to take general education seriously," Balch said.
But Balch said he didn't consider such actions to be remedial in nature, noting that "the remedial problems have to do with students not being able to write or read at the eighth grade level and still getting into college. There are many institutions in which that's a difficulty. You have people who just don't have the skills let alone the knowledge."
Even though the NAS study raises questions about the caliber of general education offered in high schools, colleges and universities also bear some responsibility, Balch said.
"I think it probably has a lot to do with the dumbing down of curriculum, both at the college and high school level," said Balch. "It looks good, certainly, to say 'more people are graduating from college,' but is there any real intellectual yield from it?"
Also part of the problem is that many colleges are placing less emphasis on liberal arts education in favor of more specialized education geared toward specific career paths, which Balch said isn't necessarily in the best interest of students or society.
"I think these results, which don't seem to show a great deal of value-added in the general cultural knowledge domain - I think these results are quite interesting and disappointing," said Balch. "We would hope that the college students of today would have done a good deal better than the high school students of the past."
Also contributing to the trend is an easing of college admissions standards. While Balch doesn't advocate a return to standards requiring competency in Greek or Latin, he does say colleges should "insist that the student coming have basic areas of knowledge."
A solid background in general knowledge, Balch said, is "very important both for good citizenship and, for many people at least, for a happy and interesting life," by providing students with what Balch called "cultural furniture that allows them to be better citizens."
Click here to read the general knowledge questions.
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By picking the right metrics I can make todays college grads look dumber that 1900's seventh graders. So just how many ounces should one feed his plow horse?
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Mine were rather good.
Yeah, but can a 1950s high school grad create an Excel spreadsheet to show population trends in Asia or determine how much additional RAM is required in a given computer to run Windows XP?
Comparing education now to the 1950s is meaningless. There were far fewer distractions for a student in the 1950s so it should come as no surprise that a student from that era has more "book knowledge." On the other hand, students of today tend to be more worldly. My sons regularly communicate with kids from around the world on computer and when they are doing homework, they literally have the world at their fingertips (via the Internet). A Google search will turn up far more information on an obscure subject than a textbook of the 1950s.
And what did the students of the 1950s end up doing with their lives? Smoking dope, protesting the war and listening to acid rock. Well, many of them did, anyway.
Please keep me posted.
Congressman Billybob
Click for latest column on UPI, "Junk Science - Harvard and Beyond" (Not yet on UPI wire, nor FR.)
Are you a recent college graduate? Did you read the questions? Good grief, anyone who cannot answer all these questions is an ignoramous. When I tell people the main problem with this country is that most people stupid, they do no believe me. It is apparently worse than I thought.
1-Which is the largest lake in North America?
2-What is the national language of Brazil?
3-In what country was the Battle of Waterloo fought?
4-Who made the first non-stop transatlantic solo flight?
5-What professions do you associate with Florence Nightingale?
6-What is the capital city of Spain?
7-What composer wrote The Messiah?
8-Who wrote a play entitled. A Midsummer Night's Dream?
9-Which planet is nearest the sun?
10-What is the name of the decoration given to those in the armed forces who are wounded in action against an enemy?
11-What great scientist do you associate with the Theory of Relativity?
12-Which of the following states border on Canada?
Montana
Michigan
Minnesota
Maine
All
Not sure
Hank
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In the mid '50s none of that existed. By the mid 60s the high school graduates of the mid '50s were too old to be hippies.
Answers to General Knowledge Questions (if you really need them).
These links open a new window. The questions are also in my previous post.
Hank
Thanks for both posts.
Billybob
Consider:
If you do not know which states border Canada, how can one correctly assess immigration problems along the border?
If you do not know that Einstein is reponsible for the theory of relativity, when someone says "Way to go, Einstein!" how will you understand what is meant?
If you do not understand the significance of the Purple Heart, how can you appreciate the sacrifices of those in our military?
Increasingly we are turning out students who are totally divorced from the history of our culture. They make decisions based on contemporary trends, without understanding the historical background on many issues. This is dangerous, because it means a significant portion of the population can be manipulated by celebrities who purport to be "experts."
Of course, never before in history has a crop of youngsters thought they knew more either though, too.
...oh the irony. :o)
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In the mid '50s none of that existed. By the mid 60s the high school graduates of the mid '50s were too old to be hippies.
Many high school grads from the 50's and 60's served in Vietnam.
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