Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community  

Go Back   Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community > The Academy > Tilted Philosophy


 
 
LinkBack Thread Tools
Old 07-18-2004, 09:06 AM   #1 (permalink)
Insane
 
yatzr's Avatar
 
last name determines grades??

I wasn't sure where to put this. If anyone thinks it should be moved, please do.

I've noticed a crazy phenomenon (sp?) at my hometown in the past 3 or 4 years (after talking to people about it, it's been going on far longer than that though). At graduation, when they announce the top 10 percent of the class, each kid stands up. The class size is always around 100 kids, so they usually sit them in 4 rows of 25. They are seated alphabetically starting in the front row. The kids that stand up for the top 10 percent are ALWAYS in the first two rows. In my class, the last person to stand had a last name that started with L. In the class after me, they had one exception (two actually, they were twins) who's last name started with S. They were the only ones in the last two rows to stand. The class that just graduated had nobody in the last two rows stand. Also, within the first two rows, there are always more people in the first row than the second to stand.

I have a theory for this. I first noticed this phenomenon in 7th grade science class. We played one of those review for a test games where the class was split into two teams. The teacher was too lazy to pick randomly so she just took the class roster and split it in the middle. The teams were so obviously unfair that the team with last names of N-Z didn't want to play. We played anyway, and it just seemed like one of those cruel things a teacher would do to show a dumb kid how dumb they are. So this tells me that it started early on. My theory is it evolved from alphabetical seating and doing activities or whatever in alphabetical order in elementary school. One interesting thing to point out, the twins that were the exception went to a rural school until high school with only about 10 kids in the class so they wouldn't be affected as much by this. But anyway, when a kid is often placed in the back of the room, or has to stand in the back of the line, or goes last in show and tell or whatever, I think that could lead to psychological discouragement.

Does this happen in anyone else's schools? What do you all think about this?
__________________
Mechanical Engineers build weapons. Civil Engineers build targets.
yatzr is offline  
Old 07-18-2004, 09:23 AM   #2 (permalink)
Insane
 
Phage's Avatar
 
It makes sense that sitting near the front of the class will make people pay more attention; after all, they are right up there with the teacher. I don't really like the idea of being placed in the back being psychologically discouraging mainly because I don't think people are that weak mentally. If being told to stand near the back of a line is going to scar you for life, did you really have a chance anyway?
However, I do think it likely that when you start to zone out during class you are probably going to recover pretty quickly with the teacher 5 feet away from you.
Phage is offline  
Old 07-18-2004, 09:35 AM   #3 (permalink)
* * *
 
Quote:
It makes sense that sitting near the front of the class will make people pay more attention
Actually, research has proven that the students that sit in front of the class get better grades. I don't really have the time now to find the articles that prove this, but at least 4 of my professors in the College of Education have told me this. You might do a search in ERIC's database of you're interested in finding the exact research.
__________________
Innominate.
wilbjammin is offline  
Old 07-18-2004, 12:49 PM   #4 (permalink)
spudly
 
ubertuber's Avatar
 
Location: Ellay
Quote:
Originally posted by wilbjammin
Actually, research has proven that the students that sit in front of the class get better grades. I don't really have the time now to find the articles that prove this, but at least 4 of my professors in the College of Education have told me this. You might do a search in ERIC's database of you're interested in finding the exact research.
Will,
Which one would you say is generally the cause and which is the effect? I think there are definite advantages to sitting in front. In my education though, when seating arrangements were optional (continuing in grad school today) the students that sat in front were the ones that would have gotten good grades anyway because they were engaging in other constructive behavior (like note-taking and handing in their homework on time). I am really curious about your take on this since you are studying it.
__________________
Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam
ubertuber is offline  
Old 07-18-2004, 12:53 PM   #5 (permalink)
lascivious
 
Mantus's Avatar
 
Indeed. The students that choose to sit at the rear do so because they want the least amount of attention from the teacher.
Mantus is offline  
Old 07-18-2004, 02:28 PM   #6 (permalink)
Addict
 
hiredgun's Avatar
 
I would assume that those who published the report that wilbjammin referenced controlled for that possibility by isolating classrooms in which students had no choice on where to sit (thereby eliminating self-selection as a confounding factor).
hiredgun is offline  
Old 07-18-2004, 04:36 PM   #7 (permalink)
Insane
 
yatzr's Avatar
 
has anybody else ever seen anything as extreme as my school though? Only two people (twins though so it should probably only be considered one person and they didn't attend the public elementary/middle schools anyway) with last name past the letter N in the past 3 years that graduated in the top 10 percent. I think that's pretty extreme. Also, I can hardly even remember much alphabetical seating, and whenever we did, it would only be for the first quarter to help the teacher out with names.
__________________
Mechanical Engineers build weapons. Civil Engineers build targets.
yatzr is offline  
Old 07-19-2004, 10:10 PM   #8 (permalink)
Psycho
 
CoachAlan's Avatar
 
Location: Las Vegas
I did a Google search on "high school 'top ten' graduate" and here's the distribution I found by the time I stopped clicking:

A - 2
B - 3
C - 7
D - 5
E - 1
F - 3
G - 8
H - 2
I - 1
J - 1
K - 0
L - 3
M - 5
N - 1
O - 2
P - 3
Q - 1
R - 4
S - 5
T - 3
U - 0
V - 5
W - 1
X - 0
Y - 0
Z - 3

It's a pretty small sample size, but the selection was pretty impartial. Draw your own cnclusions from the distribution... A helpful tool would be to compare this distribution with the distribution of last names among all students of this age. If the distributions largely match up, then it's pretty safe to say that there's no alphabetical bias. But if they don't then it warrants more investigation.

And yes, I have too much time on my hands.
__________________
"If I cannot smoke cigars in heaven, I shall not go!"
- Mark Twain
CoachAlan is offline  
Old 07-19-2004, 10:32 PM   #9 (permalink)
Tilted
 
Location: Blacksburg, VA
I don't really think there is much of a trend. Our valadictorian's name started with an s. We had a couple of top ten students in the Ws. Granted my class could have been the exception.
VTBrian is offline  
Old 07-19-2004, 11:55 PM   #10 (permalink)
PIKE!
 
ibis's Avatar
 
Could it be that socioeconomic groups are somewhat split, when it comes to order of last name in the alphabet, like your graduating class?

Last edited by ibis; 07-20-2004 at 01:57 PM..
ibis is offline  
Old 07-20-2004, 01:07 PM   #11 (permalink)
Junkie
 
sapiens's Avatar
 
Location: Some place windy
Quote:
Originally posted by hiredgun
I would assume that those who published the report that wilbjammin referenced controlled for that possibility by isolating classrooms in which students had no choice on where to sit (thereby eliminating self-selection as a confounding factor).
I wouldn't assume that. I've seen so many studies published with poor/no controls. Ugh! Regardless, your suggestion for proper controls was a good one.

Has anyone actually seen any empirical evidence from properly controlled studies for the alphabetical order of last names being correlated with grades?
sapiens is offline  
Old 07-21-2004, 12:42 AM   #12 (permalink)
Cherry-pickin' devil's advocate
 
Location: Los Angeles
Well in my area there is a pretty heavy split in race. Our high school was (believe it or not) 50% asian, 35% hispanic, and then there was the rest (white, black, etc.).

This might sound stereotyping to people but this was the truth (from transcripts and records) - the Asians tended to have higher average GPAs. The valedectorian/salutatorians were almost always Asian (in the last 10 years at least). This tended to place more Asians in the top 10 so last names obviously were slanted towards the more common ones (namely C, L, W).

Of course that is nothing conclusive at all and is a really small sample size, but that is the *racial* factor one might put into play. If a race in an area generally performs higher on average, that might place more in certain last names.
Zeld2.0 is offline  
Old 07-21-2004, 08:15 AM   #13 (permalink)
Crazy
 
Location: Sunny San Diego
In addition to racial factors, it seems to me that the majority of all last names fall within the first half of the alphabet. Juts looking at my local phone book, 62% of the last names begin with letters A-M. This means I would expect 62% of top10 students around here to have last names beginning with A-M.

This bias towards the beginning of the alphabet holds true for other categories too. Look at band names, the majority begin with a letter in the first half of the alphabet. Same thing for movie titles. Because we do things alphabetically, I think this will always be the case.
synic213 is offline  
 

Tags
determines, grades

Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On



All times are GMT -8. The time now is 07:04 PM.

Tilted Forum Project

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Search Engine Optimization by vBSEO 3.6.0 PL2
© 2002-2012 Tilted Forum Project

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360