[NLA] Misinformation From the U.S. Government Part 3

[Catherine B. King]

Hello Tom and Colleagues:

Tom recalls from my post:  "Regarding Catherine's
discussion of 'full potential,' it is precisely because of
the unscientific nature of the concept of 'full potential' as
illustrated by Catherine's discussion, and the potential (!)
for harm that such a concept has, recall the history of
intelligence testing and the declarations by some [e.g.,
Forbes Magazine, October 2, 2000, Dan Seligman] that
certain groups lack the potential to benefit from education
because of their low intelligence, . . ."

Tom is right that "potential," or any notion or concept, for that
matter, can be turned around and misused by researchers,
especially those whose political foundations remain obscure
(even perhaps to them) rather than developed as a preliminary
and reflective part of their research reporting.

Also, perhaps the notion of full "potential" is not a technical
term in statistical science; however, it IS a concept referring
to real human development that has been given full treatment
in theoretical philosophy, i.e., by the philosopher Bernard
Lonergan in his work "Insight, A Study of Human
Understanding"  (New York:  Philosophical Library,
l970).   In others' works, the notion of "potential" is connected
with the opening of horizons and dialectical attitudes, etc. The
term also has transpositional meaning--its meaning is
intrinsically related to other terms in other's theoretical
work, e.g., Jack Mezirow's work.

The point is that "potential" (1) may not be a statistical term.
(2) It IS a theoretical term with rigorous meaning in theoretical
philosophy, and (3) it is a quite meaningful, but non-rigorous
term in common usage, especially in education, with general
dictionary definition.   Many terms share meaning in different
fields, e.g., "heat" means several things, even within the
natural sciences?  And we do not impose the common
meaning of "heat" to "heat" in theoretical physics, any more
than we impose the meaning of "heat" in physics to common
discourse?

Also, in adult education, just what that "potential" is remains
to be discovered as it unfolds under its own principles as the
teacher and the student work together.  (Those principles
are clearly defined in Lonergan's Insight, and quite probably
in different but related ways to other's works in sociology,
psychology, anthropology, etc.)

Tom, you are in the field of statistics? and I don't expect you
to have read across fields any more than you would expect
everyone on this list to be a statistician.  However, education
draws rightly from more than one theoretical field and, more
germane, it is integrative, which means education is the field
that mediates between theory and common discourse.  Part
of the many confusions in the field (according to my
teachers) relates back to our misunderstanding of this
integrative dimension of our dialogue.

But your other response is much more disconcerting:  That is,
you say:  "My response: I believe Catherine has misread my post.
I did not argue that the first part is incoherent, Instead I said that
the statement was misinformation because (1) on methodological
grounds, there is no known methodology for determining what the
skills and education needed to succeed in family, work, and
community life across the nation are and (2) there is a lack of
methods for measuring what it means to 'succeed' in family, work,
and community life. So the statement is not incoherent, it is just
that it coheres into meaninglessness."

Tom is right that there "is a lack of methods for measuring what it
means to 'succeed' in family, work, and community life," --if you
limit his context to **statistical science.**

However, in each community, and for each adult-person, that notion
of what "success" means can certainly be explored **meaningfully**
and quite precisely in the context of a creative dialogue between
researchers, teachers and community members--adult students.
(See Donna M. Mertens' "Research Methods in Education and
Psychology--Integrating Diversity with Quantitative & Qualitative
Approaches, [1998] Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA.)

Also, what does "cohere into meaninglessness" mean if not to
be "incoherent"?; but I suppose I missed your humor here.  But I
don't think I mis-read your note at all.  I do agree that, as you say,

"It could have said, 'By strengthening practice and policy,
NCSALL helps these adults gain an opportunity to improve their
skills and education.'"

But when you say:  "After all, it was their skills and education
that was claimed to be lacking in the first place, not their
'potential,'" you misrepresent your own NCSALL quote. The
quote reads:

"By strengthening practice and policy, NCSALL helps these
adults gain an opportunity to achieve their full potential."  They
don't claim that potential is lacking.  If potential were lacking,
adults wouldn't be able to achieve anything at all.  Nor do they
claim how that potential may turn out to manifest itself.  It just
says they help adults gain an opportunity to achieve it.   The
inference is that all adults have potential, though it's just not
yet developed--as it indeed remains to be in any of us, if we
all share an understanding of what "potent" means and how
in education, we are always faced with its manifest surprises.

And finally, you say:  "Even if the NCSALL web page is for a
general audience, it is my opinion that it is supposed to
represent the work of scientific researchers, so the use of
imprecise, and essentially meaningless, but potentially
harmful terms should be avoided."

I don't think it's "meaningless" at all; nor is this kind of
communication a place for scientific precision.  If you are a
researcher, you look further past the summaries and the
material meant for the common reader to what my teachers
call "the big book."

I agree that a critique of such writing is important.  But the
thought did pass through my mind that perhaps the writers
of the webpage were infected with the philosophical notion
that the only way to legitimate their writing is to add statistical
data to it?   Now that would be a sad state of affairs.

Perhaps your other complaints about the "misinformation
from the U.S. Government" is based on the false assumption
that the two fields--statistical science and common discourse--
are collapsed into one, and that statistical science is the
only legitimate and meaningful field of discourse, and
the only field that researchers or web page writers can
speak from or to?  Certainly you are right that such a
statement **in a statistical report** would be vague and out
of place?   But not in the field of common discourse?

Regards,

Catherine B. King
Adjunct Instructor
Department of Education
National University
San Diego, CA

----- Original Message -----
From: Thomas Sticht <tsticht at znet.com>
To: <nla at lists.literacytent.org>
Sent: Friday, November 08, 2002 6:52 PM
Subject: [NLA] Misinformation From the U.S. Government Part 3


> This is a reply to Debbie Yoho and Catherine King
> Tom Sticht
>
> Debbie Yoho said, "Tom, I would just like some clarification about what
> your opinion is regarding "evidence-based" research?  This last post, I
> think, could be interpreted as part of a call to standards and "rigor",
> especially when making the case for funding quality adult learning
> systems.  On the other hand, sometimes I sense, or maybe read in, some
> underlying sarcasm or discomfort with the administration's rhetoric along
> these lines, and a subtle message that even our field's research leaders
> are buying into ideas of "rigor" that George Demetrion sees as really a
> statement of political philosophy.  So how do you really see the issue?  "
>
> My response: I see the government's rhetoric that the field needs to
> produce "rigorous, scientific, evidence-based" approaches to adult
> education and literacy development to be somewhat hypocritical because
> while they insist that the field produce information based on this type of
> rigorous research, they themselves are propagating information based on
> the NALS that has been soundly criticized, even by the former director of
> the NALS,  as lacking validity and as unscientific in its arbitrary use of
> response probabilities to establish its scales of literacy, In my recent
> posts I cited extensive data from the final technical report of the NALS
> by several different measurement and statistical experts that identified
> the validity problems of the NALS. These data have not been challenged by
> the government, including the federally funded National Center for Adult
> Learning and Literacy. Indeed NCSALL and different government agencies
> continue to do analyses and produce alarming statistics about the skills
> of America's adults based on these faulty data, while the Bush
> administration is taking actions that lead to inflation-adjusted
> reductions in the funding in USED/OVAE for adult literacy education.
>
>
> Catherine King said, Quote: "Hello Tom: In your "research note," Part 3,
> you quote from the homepage of the NCSALL: " More than 40 percent of
> working-age adults in the United States lack the skills and education
> needed to succeed in family, work, and community life today. By
> strengthening practice and policy, NCSALL helps these adults gain an
> opportunity to achieve their full potential."
>
> You argue that basically the first part of this quote is incoherent, the
> last part is "patently false," that the only federally funded AE research
> center is staffed by "lay people," and that you would expect to find
> "researchers with the scientific training to understand the importance of
> construct validity and other aspects of valid research." End Quote
>
>
> My response: I believe Catherine has misread my post. I did not argue that
> the first part is incoherent, Instead I said that the statement was
> misinformation because (1) on methodological grounds, there is no known
> methodology for determining what the skills and education needed to
> succeed in family, work, and community life across the nation are and (2)
> there is a lack of methods for measuring what it means to "succeed" in
> family, work, and community life. So the statement is not incoherent, it
> is just that it coheres into meaninglessness. It was this first part that
> I labeled "patently false" not the second part, and I stated that it was
> other federal government offices, not NCSALL, that was staffed by lay
> persons and not scientists. I expressed dismay that the NCSALL, where I
> would expect to find scientists, is also propagating misinformation based
> on faulty research.
>
> Regarding Catherine's discussion of "full potential," it is precisely
> because of the unscientific nature of the concept of "full potential" as
> illustrated by Catherine's discussion, and the potential (!) for harm that
> such a concept has, recall the history of intelligence testing and the
> declarations by some [e.g., Forbes Magazine, October 2, 2000, Dan Seligman
> ] that certain groups lack the potential to benefit from education because
> of their low intelligence,  that I am disappointed to find the only
> federally funded,  national research center for adult education using such
> language to describe its mission. It could have said, "By strengthening
> practice and policy, NCSALL helps these adults gain an opportunity to
> improve their skills and education." After all, it was their skills and
> education that was claimed to be lacking in the first place, not their
> "potential." Even if the NCSALL web page is for a general audience, it is
> my opinion that it is supposed to represent the work of scientific
> researchers, so the use of imprecise, and essentially meaningless, but
> potentially harmful terms should be avoided.
>
>
>
>
> Research Note                             7 November 2002
>
> Tom Sticht
> International Consultant in Adult Education
>
>
> Adult Skills Misinformation From the U.S. Government Part 3:
> National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL)
>
> Recently, I have posted messages on misinformation from the U. S.
> Department of Education, Office of Vocational and Adult Education
> (USED/OVAE) and the National Institute for Literacy ( NIFL). It is
> disconcerting enough to have these federal government offices, staffed
> with lay people, not research scientists,  provide incorrect information
> based on the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) of 1992, but it is
> especially disturbing to find the only federally  funded, adult education
> and literacy research center, where one would expect to find researchers
> with the scientific training to understand the importance of construct
> validity and other aspects of valid research, to also be spreading
> misinformation regarding the skills of our nation's adults.
>
> But there, on the home web page of the National Center for the Study of
> Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL) is the misinformation that: Quote"
> More than 40 percent of working-age adults in the United States lack the
> skills and education needed to succeed in family, work, and community life
> today. By strengthening practice and policy, NCSALL helps these adults
> gain an opportunity to achieve their full potential." End Quote
>
> Why is this statement misinformation? Because there is no known
> methodology for determining what the skills and education needed to
> succeed in family, work, and community life across the nation are. It is
> even more difficult to identify what it means to "succeed" in family,
> work, and community life.
>
> What can it possibly mean to say that 40 percent, that's two out of five,
> adults of working-age in America can't succeed at family life?
>
> Can a nation with less than 6 percent unemployment be made-up of 40
> percent of adults who can't find a job and succeed at work?
>
> What on earth is "community life?" Does it include going to the grocery
> store to buy food thereby supporting the grocery store in the community?
> Can 40  percent of working-age adults not go to the store and buy food
> because they lack the skills or education to do so?
>
> What is the "working-age" of adults in the United States? The newly
> elected Democratic Senator from New Jersey is 78 years old, is he of
> working-age?
>
> Clearly, the claim that Quote "More than 40 percent of working-age adults
> in the United States lack the skills and education needed to succeed in
> family, work, and community life today"  cannot be substantiated and
> represents yet another example of federally-funded misinformation about
> the skills of America's adults.
>
> Also bothersome, if not as troublesome as the patently false claims about
> the working-age adults in the U. S., is the claim that Quote".NCSALL helps
> these adults gain an opportunity to achieve their full potential." The
> problem with this is that it seems to suggest that adults possess
> something called their "full potential," and that this "full potential" is
> some sort of intrinsic quality of the individual. This begins to smack of
> attributions of genetic limits to achievement and from there it is an easy
> step to cast off some people from the mainstream of society because they
> lack the "potential" to achieve much. But I know of no method of
> determining what a person's "full potential" is and I lean heavily toward
> the position that an individual's "potential," "full" or otherwise, is
> determined to a large extent by the person's environment, culture,
> socioeconomic, and other social factors that help shape the person's
> opportunities, education and skills.
>
> Having now experienced the disappointment of finding misinformation in
> three major contexts of the federal government, I am left wondering
> whether or not the government can fulfill its strategic goal of supporting
> educational reforms that are built on "rigorous, scientific,
> evidence-based" approaches. So far it does not seem to be living up to its
> "full potential" for such reform.
>
>
>
>
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