->    The researchers also discovered a surprise finding.
-> Students with strong academic records, those one would least
-> expect to be affected by competency test performance -- suffer
-> most from failure on the exam.  Griffin and 
-> Heidorn suggest that this
-> relationship may be partially explained by the perceived
-> stigma attached to MCT failure.
->    Griffin and Heidorn caution against building any casual
-> inferences from the data; for example, that MCT performance
-> actually contributes to a student's decision to leave school.
-> Instead, the study only indicates possible linkages between MCT
-> performance and dropping out.
Deming management theory would say that testing increases defects - would be 
interesting to follow this up next year to see if the results are the same. I 
bet they would be. 
 
As for being surprised, I wouldn't have been - common sense would have told 
them that. Poor students are used to failing-it doesn't mean a thing to them. 
The strong academic student is not used to failing. So, what is the test 
accomplishing? Making defects?
--- Maximus 2.02
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