[tt] Flynn is bunk

[Eugen Leitl]

(ok, it Guardian, but still)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/oct/27/teenagers-less-bright

Teenagers of yesteryear 'were brighter'

Experiment shows best pupils are less able to analyse

* Jessica Shepherd * guardian.co.uk, * Monday October 27 2008 11.50 GMT

The UK's brightest 14-year-olds are less clever than a generation ago, while
their classmates of average intellect are more able, a study shows.

Michael Shayer, professor of applied psychology at King's College, University
of London, tested the ability of 13- and 14-year-olds to think rationally and
logically.

He compared the survey of 800 teenagers to a similar experiment he did in
1976.

His results for one part of the test showed that almost a quarter of
14-year-olds could think analytically in 1976, while just over 10% can now.

In another section, the high-level thinking skills had dropped from a fifth
of 14-year-olds to just 5%.

However, average intellect had improved in a generation.

The findings, to be published in the British Journal of Educational
Psychology, contradict national exam results which show a year-on-year rise
in top grades in tests taken by 14-year-olds and in GCSEs and A-levels.

Shayer said: "Teachers are concentrating on giving the basic skills to more
pupils, so the average ability goes up, but they fail to stretch the
brightest so the high-end ability falls."

Shayer and his team examined the teenagers' understanding of abstract
scientific concepts, such as density, volume and weight.

The students were asked to study a pendulum swinging on a string and
investigate what caused it to change speed.

A quarter of pupils gained high marks in this in 1976, while just over one in
ten did today.

In another test, pupils were asked to think about what made weights balance
on a beam. A fifth gained good marks in this a generation ago, while just one
in 20 did so today.

Shayer said his research showed children's responses were becoming quicker,
but that they lacked the ability to think "anything but shallowly". "They are
not as able to step back from reality and to reason," he said.

Shayer warned that unless the government urgently tackled the decline in
higher-level thinking skills, the future supply of scientists would be
compromised.

Professor Peter Tymms, director of the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring
at Durham University, said: "Now there's more emphasis on getting their maths
right and less emphasis on their thinking skills."

"They were left to play and take objects apart more a generation ago," he
said.

This month the education secretary, Ed Balls, scrapped national tests for
14-year-olds, known as Sats. He said a system of internal teacher assessment
would be used instead from next year.