When school administrators translate educational research

Question

When school administrators translate educational research into a standardized teaching program and mandate its use by teachers, students learn less and learn less well than they did before, even though the teachers are the same. The translation by the administrators of theory into prescribed practice must therefore be flawed. 
The argument above is based on which of the following assumptions? 
(A) Teachers differ in their ability to teach in accordance with standardized programs. 
(B) The educational research on which the standardized teaching programs are based is sound. 
(C) Researchers should be the ones to translate their own research into teaching programs. 
(D) The ways in which teachers choose to implement the programs are ineffective. 
(E) The level of student learning will vary from state to state.

I can use POE and get to the correct answer but I don't really understand. Please explain your answer. Thanks.

HongHu · Answer

I feel only (B) is remotely related to the question.

(A) Teachers differ in their ability to teach in accordance with standardized programs. 
It's not difference in teachers abilities.

(B) The educational research on which the standardized teaching programs are based is sound. 
If this is true than the bad result can only be because the translation is flawed.

(C) Researchers should be the ones to translate their own research into teaching programs. 
This would not be an assumption, may be a further inference.

(D) The ways in which teachers choose to implement the programs are ineffective. 
If this is true then the translation may not be flawed, does not support the conclusion.

(E) The level of student learning will vary from state to state.
Nobody talked about state differences.

Anna Rama · Answer

Hong Hu,

Thank you for the explaination.This is what I see from the passage:
Conclusion:The translation by the administrators of theory into prescribed practice must therefore be flawed. 
Evidence:Students are learning less effectively.
++++

What is the missing link that connects the conclusion and evidence?How does (b) do the job?Tx.

Anna

HongHu · Answer

If the method itself is not sound, then the poor performance of the students may not be due to a flawed translation, since it could be because the method itself is bad. To get to the conclusion that the translation is bad, we have to assume all the others are not bad.

maaverick · Answer

I'd go with  (B)  as well

Quoting the original stem: "When school administrators translate educational research into a standardized teaching program and mandate its use by teachers, students learn less and learn less well than they did before, even though the teachers are the same. The translation by the administrators of theory into prescribed practice must therefore be flawed."

Bare-bone paraphrasing: Students learn less through study material which results from the translation of research into std teaching prog.  Therefore , the translation  MUST  be flawed.

The conclusion is that the translation must be flawed. Using the CPA (Conclusion-Premise-Assumption) approach, let us break this process down: We start off with 

Educational research -> std teaching programs -> taught by teachers -> to students. 

Now, the first conversion (from educational research to std teaching prog is flawed) and hence, the students end up learning less. Therefore, there is no loss of efficiency in the remaining steps (sorry to repeat this point, but just for the sake of clarification).

Examining our finding above, let us evaluate the options:

(A) - ruled out. Against our finding that there is no loss of efficiency from teacher -> student

(B) - Keep it: The educational research is sound; this implies that students are indeed learning less because of the loss of efficiency in the translation process

(C) - ruled out: We're not looking for recommendations to improve the process. We're looking for assumptions

(D) - ruled out: same argument as (A)

(E) - ruled out: completely irrelevant

Thus, by POE, we can zero in on (B), though it's still a pretty vague assumption. Nevertheless, we have to live with the lesser devil - that's the principle of the ETS. 

Please put in your views - this is an interesting CR.

vprabhala · Answer

i think A.. cauz of the difference in the ability.. or am I thinking too much..!!!!!

qhoc0010 · Answer

OA is (B)
Good job guys

chunjuwu · Answer

Here is my reasoning, hope it will do you good. argument: (research --> teaching program)---> students learn less well conclustion: the translation must be flawed. If the conclustion is right, the premise must be that research itself is sound. Or one can argue that the unsoundness of the research makes the translation flawed.

When school administrators translate educational research

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