On the subject of tests, for a time I worked as a technical instructor, training customers of our avionics products. Aeronautical authorities require training of maintenance personnel to certify maintenance shops. The requirement is simply "attend/receive training" with no reference to having passed a test. Although English is the langua…
On the subject of tests, for a time I worked as a technical instructor, training customers of our avionics products. Aeronautical authorities require training of maintenance personnel to certify maintenance shops. The requirement is simply "attend/receive training" with no reference to having passed a test. Although English is the language of technical aspects of aviation, I taught classes with a Chinese interpreter on one occasion and a Russian interpreter on another. Most of my students were from other countries. The engineers normally had better English language skills than the technicians and every morning started with questions from the previous day, stated by the engineers on behalf of the technicians whose English language reading skills surpassed their verbal skills.
One of the instructors tried to argue that we should develop tests. Immediately one might ask, could I have written tests for the classes with interpreters. Another instructor whose degree was in industrial education declared that none of us were qualified to write a test. That was challenged so he told us all to write a twenty-question multiple choice test for one of our courses that he had never attended. He passed them all without considering anything relating to the course material. One test he chose the shortest answer for example. Writing tests must consider things that most people who are specifically untrained in won't consider.
There was a reason that the training requirement did not include testing. In a world-wide field support role that I once had which included training, one of the things that I found was that every shop had one "strong man" who I could teach a lot to, one or two who were "good" and could pick up the strong man's sword if he was hit by a bus. The rest were typically able to learn to properly follow procedures. In one location which I will not name, the best and brightest was limited to following procedures. There were a number of reasons for the diversity in abilities, one of which was clearly basic intelligence when that includes the ability to draw logical troubleshooting conclusions.
"There were a number of reasons for the diversity in abilities, one of which was clearly basic intelligence when that includes the ability to draw logical troubleshooting conclusions."
This is a big part of the reason I reject the idea that intelligence is too vague and nebulous to measure. Smart people are usually more adept at broad ranges of problem solving, not only in one area that can skew a test result. Aside from people with some savant ability, like the guy who can tell you if a 12-digit number is prime in a few seconds, bright people tend to be broadly bright.
There is an absolute delight in communicating with smart people; you rarely have to finish a sentence because they grasp where it's headed and then leap past it to the ramifications.
There is a "perpetual motion" video on Twitter right now; https://twitter.com/ScienceGuys_/status/1564200865547689985 ... I took one look and said "the ball rises farther than it falls. It's a trick." Turns out there's an electromagnet accelerating its descent. OK, that doesn't make me a genius, but the analytic process that begins with knowing the law of energy conservation kicked in all by itself.
On the subject of tests, for a time I worked as a technical instructor, training customers of our avionics products. Aeronautical authorities require training of maintenance personnel to certify maintenance shops. The requirement is simply "attend/receive training" with no reference to having passed a test. Although English is the language of technical aspects of aviation, I taught classes with a Chinese interpreter on one occasion and a Russian interpreter on another. Most of my students were from other countries. The engineers normally had better English language skills than the technicians and every morning started with questions from the previous day, stated by the engineers on behalf of the technicians whose English language reading skills surpassed their verbal skills.
One of the instructors tried to argue that we should develop tests. Immediately one might ask, could I have written tests for the classes with interpreters. Another instructor whose degree was in industrial education declared that none of us were qualified to write a test. That was challenged so he told us all to write a twenty-question multiple choice test for one of our courses that he had never attended. He passed them all without considering anything relating to the course material. One test he chose the shortest answer for example. Writing tests must consider things that most people who are specifically untrained in won't consider.
There was a reason that the training requirement did not include testing. In a world-wide field support role that I once had which included training, one of the things that I found was that every shop had one "strong man" who I could teach a lot to, one or two who were "good" and could pick up the strong man's sword if he was hit by a bus. The rest were typically able to learn to properly follow procedures. In one location which I will not name, the best and brightest was limited to following procedures. There were a number of reasons for the diversity in abilities, one of which was clearly basic intelligence when that includes the ability to draw logical troubleshooting conclusions.
"There were a number of reasons for the diversity in abilities, one of which was clearly basic intelligence when that includes the ability to draw logical troubleshooting conclusions."
This is a big part of the reason I reject the idea that intelligence is too vague and nebulous to measure. Smart people are usually more adept at broad ranges of problem solving, not only in one area that can skew a test result. Aside from people with some savant ability, like the guy who can tell you if a 12-digit number is prime in a few seconds, bright people tend to be broadly bright.
There is an absolute delight in communicating with smart people; you rarely have to finish a sentence because they grasp where it's headed and then leap past it to the ramifications.
There is a "perpetual motion" video on Twitter right now; https://twitter.com/ScienceGuys_/status/1564200865547689985 ... I took one look and said "the ball rises farther than it falls. It's a trick." Turns out there's an electromagnet accelerating its descent. OK, that doesn't make me a genius, but the analytic process that begins with knowing the law of energy conservation kicked in all by itself.