Prognostic value of university entrance examinations in Scotland.

Date:
1934
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Prognostic value of university entrance examinations in Scotland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    28/140 (page 20)
    Vv PROGNOSTIC VALUE OF HEAD TEACHER'S GENERAL ESTIMATE Ir has been mentioned that when a Head Teacher submits his list of candidates for the Leaving Certificate he expresses his opinion of each by a letter mark. The scale in use is Ex., V.G., G., F.G., F.; or, with + and — refinements, Ex., V.G.+, V.G., V.G.—, G.+, etc. Whatever be the relation of attainment to capacity—and this, in a sense, is the general question at issue— it is obvious that the predictive value of the Head Teacher’s opinion depends in the first place on its correctness as an estimate of attainment. Now, though even Head Teachers are fallible, there is little question that their orders of merit, based as they are on a fairly long acquaintance with individual pupils and sup- ported by the class teachers’ opinions, are almost invariably correct. But a table like Table V combines marks from many “orders of merit.” It may be a very useful table if the Head Teachers’ standards are all the same; it will be less useful if one man’s G. means as much as another’s V.G. Such wide differences in standard are not likely to occur among teachers who year by year are brought up against the more objective standard of the Leaving Certificate. Still, in comparing Head Teachers’ estimates with University results we must not forget that such differences may, and probably do, exist. Moreover, University success (at least of the highest kind) calls for critical and constructive powers that have scarcely emerged at school. This is true even of subjects that are common to school and University, much more of purely University subjects like Philosophy and Economics. Table V shows that, on the whole, Head Teachers’ estimates are higher for those students who obtained Honours than for those who did not; and among Honours graduates slightly higher for the Firsts than for the Seconds, and for the Seconds than for the Thirds. There is not much difference, however, in