Thank you in advance!
The following appeared as part of a newspaper editorial:
“Two years ago Nova High School began to use interactive computer instruction in three academic subjects. The school dropout rate declined immediately, and last year’s graduates have reported some impressive achievements in college. In future budgets the school board should use a greater portion of the available funds to buy more computers, and all schools in the district should adopt interactive computer instruction throughout the curriculum.”
The argument recommend to adopt an interactive computer instruction in all the schools of the district. The reasons behind are the connections it made between the change to interactive computer instruction in 3 courses and two facts: decline of the school dropout rate and increase of the achievements in college by the graduates. In drawing the conclusion, the author not only assume a cause effect relationship between the computer instruction and improvements in school metrics, but also assume this relationship can be replicate in the rest for schools and will have the same outputs. The argument is flawed because it assume the fact of some increase in the achievements of the graduates will be in the same courses the computer instruction was introduced. Also, is flawed because it extrapolate the posible cause effect to all schools without considering important difference between them and Nova. The next paragraph will review each flaw mention.
FIrst, the evidence of some impressive achievements in college of graduates is inexactly. The argument didn´t explain if the improvement were in general, in specific courses or in which way “some impressive achievements” is measure. This information is importante because it can be possible that the improvements were in differents courses that the ones with computer instruction. Furthermore, the argument consider that the graduates improvements in college was because the adoption of instruction help them in the last year of school. Altough, that connection was true, it isn’t sure that the result of one year can change the general performance of the last year students.
Second, the argument consider Nova School and the rest of schools in the district the same altough there must be important differences. The argument recommend the adoption because it pressume the rest of school will get the same improvements in the school metrics. Even if the improvements were product of the change to computer, there is not a way to know that the results will be the same for the rest of schools. The population of school can differ in number of teachers, focus in teaching, curriculum efforts, and more.
The argument is flawed by many other reasons apart the ones discussed. To overcome the flaws expose it wil help having more information about the definition of “some” achievements, know if the improvements was because the specific courses with computer instruction because they were only 3 of the whole curriculum. Also, to extent the recommend to the rest of the schools looking for the same results, it must assure that the only difference between them and Nova is the computer interactive computer instruction. As it stands, however the argument is flawed for the reasons indicated.