Lies, damn lies, and statistics…

March25

Well, I saw a comment on Doug Noon’s sidebar, and had to pipe in. Itwas a piece on fluency instruction/assessment. A few fluency fans have piped in talking about how appropriate it is as an assessment, etc. The basic problem is they have make the rookie mistake of associating correlation (on average, students with higher comprehension have higher reading speed/fluency), for causation (if you improve reading speed, you’ll improve comprehension).

In a related discussion on EdTechTalk, a link was posted to a very interesting link to the site by a fellow who does learning design on the fallacy of the bon mot: “10% of what you read, 20% of what you see, etc.” based on Dale’s Cone of Knowledge. He very carefully debunks a number of citations for this “fact”, and makes a strong case for deliberate deception on the part of many who have used this quote. Hands up out there, how many of you have been told this cannard at some point in your career? I know I have.

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