| College is notoriously survivor biased, and the metrics that nearly all studies use to justify whatever they happen to be selling that day is horseshit. There are a lot of malevolent parasites that make their way into forever jobs like these. What I would personally like to see is a study of class section pass-rates that properly segment first-attempt students from re-attempt students in the metrics. The Administration doesn't collect these because it would shine visibility on a decades old problem, showing they have a conflict of interest (they want a forever student, and to take your federally subsidized money). There is a lot of fraud that happens in various different forms within these systems, that is undisclosed upfront. Physics had the notorious 3 question fail test, where questions were dependent on getting the correct answers from all previous questions, along with undisclosed rules that contradict curricula taught rules (significant digits).
If you rounded at each problem you failed, if you rounded at just the last problem you failed. In other words it embeds a causality property biasing the pass distribution greatly (only the top ~10-15% would pass). Material may not be covered, but still tested on, and this may come in many different forms. Some are very tricky indeed to spot. Answering inferential questions, for them to be valid they require that there be a signal that is easily differentiable from the material taught (SNR) which allows comparison between two similar answers but one correct straightforward answer, this signal is usually attenuated to the point of denial of service (jamming), or the wording used is ambiguous (having two contradictory meanings, one of which must be guessed). The amount of time required to succeed may be non-standard (i.e. 3 hours / week per 1 unit is typical, but some classes are as high as 7-9). There are finite hours in the day, and to receive federal funding one must get 12 units. This may range from 34 hours/week for 16 weeks to 70+ depending on the hidden variables for the class. Worse, the tools that are marketed to teachers for these classes use dark patterns, or do not disclose the effect (to induce additional failures). Pearson did this as recently as 2022, where they embedded per-student randomized exam pools and the teacher couldn't access the questions on the test (and you can't rely on a signal from the class because each test is unique), and other psychological patterns such as forcing you to confirm that you got the answer wrong before you can continue (with big red text), whereas correct answers just continue on. Almost like beating a mallet on the student every time they get it wrong, while tossing invectives their way. You think that won't have an impact on performance? You can literally spend 20 years going to school and never actually complete a degree (same area of study), and not from a matter of not knowing the material. Normally someone would mention that if there were problems there are routes you can take to address them but that's not actually true either. They do have feedback systems, but those feedback systems are broken feedback systems. There is no duty to investigate a complaint. Any investigation is viewed by the faculty as creating a hostile work environment. They are all peers, from the Chair, to the Dean, to the Board of Trustees. Its all about social standing, and students have none. I would be ineffably better off today if I had never gone to college just from the financial toll its taken over the years, and the health toll (in hours worked for a pipedream). |