Fluctuations in General Cultural Information among Undergraduates

Abstract

In reporting some of the preliminary results of the Study of the Relations of Secondary and Higher Education in Pennsylvania/' the research staff of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching recently threw a bombshell into many academic circles by its announcement that the general culture information of all four under graduate classes was approximately on the same level. With the in telligence means fairly stable, the average freshman did practically as well as the average senior in the four comprehensive fields of foreign literature, fine arts, history and social studies, and general science. The same extraordinary overlapping of performance which has distressed educators in the elementary field apparently persists in even more marked form on the collegiate plane. Obviously, this startling revelation seemed to involve an indictment of the efficacy of our present practices, and many administrators speedily began the hunt for some explanation of these curious results. Its sheer length and wide range of sampling eliminated any question as to the reliability of this particular test battery, but the more diffi cult issue of validity (which many test-builders have evaded) pre sented a more vulnerable point of attack. However, from a common sense approach and in the light of the objectives and content of the tra ditional liberal arts curriculum, there seems little reason for doubting the legitimacy of the opinion that actual growth in cultural mastery'' should be indicated by the scores on the Carnegie blank;?especially since the items comprising it were all prepared by experienced col lege instructors, who, presumably being cultured individuals themselves and in the most strategic position for appraising it in others, would probably emphasize only that material which professional contacts had shown to be most diagnostic of its presence. This, of course, is not a quantitative demonstration of a test's validity but it does create a strong presumption in its favor. The mere fact that a test designed to un cover racial differences fails to do so does not mean that the test as such is no good; it may merely show that no significant race differences exist ! 255