Masters with the least amount of credits

Masters degree with the least amount of work. Excellent. I work on the assumption that I know everything of any use already and may just want someone to validate it.

 

Re: Re: Re: All this has got mixed up!

Bill, how do you know you know more? You know because you have compared your memory of what you knew before the treatment, with what you know now. That is an assessment or test. If say, you had no memory to provide data about the baseline characteristics, you could not possibly know there has been a change between past and present, for to know that requires comparison, and comparison requires assessment, the "before" verses the "after.

That is, when you picked up the book you knew x, and when you put down the book you knew x+y. However, unless you compare before and after, you cannot know there is any difference.

Whether that comparison is internal or not, whether it is subjective or not, has no bearing . An assessment may be a self assessment but it is no less an assessment for that. You cannot know of a change in an outcome without testing. It is impossible.

So, I've beat that to death so that there can be no doubt we have established that your premise for what follows has no merit. Agreed?



Bill:
Perhaps a better way to conceptualize this is to say that education remains subjective and private until it is measured against a public standard. Testing is one of the things that makes the breadth and depth of education objective.

Lawrie:
Again, examination is required to know a difference between two variables exists, or between the same variable at two different point in time, or between the value of the variable before treatment, and the value of the variable after treatment. "Value of the variable" is the assessment of some characteristic that is of interest whether that evaluation be internal and subjective or external and objective.

Bill:
So I'd say that if a student is interested in education itself, and not in certification (whether in the form of oourse credit or degrees), tests are of little relevance except as study guides.

Lawrie:
Again, the student cannot be internally aware that the education (treatment) has had an effect without internal comparison between what was and what is, that is an examination. How can you know there is a difference unless you have examined the before and after and detected a difference? If you do not examine you cannot know.

Bill:
I'll also add that education might make itself publicly known in many ways besides formal examinations. A person who has done some study might be more skilled on the job or might demonstrate knowledge of a subject in technical discussion, for example.

Lawrie:
Sure, and that is an examination Bill. An assessment has been made. All you have done is alter the method of assessment. You say, "demonstrate". What is he demonstrating? He is demonstrating competence (of the lack thereof) against (i.e., compared to) some predetermined benchmark. That is demonstration of competencies. It does not matter whether you call it formal or informal. These descriptions and definitions (formal and informal) vary with custom and culture and are not relevant to analysis whether changes in some characteristic can be known without testing.

What you are describing is simply different forms of testing. It is telling that even you cannot describe what you mean without using the language of testing.

Bill:
Some might argue that these are better measures of education than testing

Lawrie:
Let me stop you there if I may. Better measures of education than testing. To measure is to test. Slotting in the synonym, your statement then becomes: "these are better tests of education than testing.

Again, even you, arguing the other side, cannot describe what you mean without using the language of examination.

Bill:
since they can better demonstrate the ability to integrate new learning with older knowledge and to deploy it creatively.

Lawrie:
And all that is, is the use of a different test. "They can better demonstrate", you say. Demonstrate what? Demonstrate competence. Demonstration of competence is a comparison of a performance against a benchmark. That is, it is a test.


It has been unambiguously demonstrated in this discussion that changes in a state cannot be known without examination. It follows that to speak of qualities of an education that are not amenable to testing, is to say their effect is unknowable. The obvious question then becomes, how then do you know that some quality is there after, that was not there before? How do you know the unknowable? Outside of theology, the proposition is oxymoronic and absurd.


Lawrie Miller
author: BA in 4 Weeks and Accelerated Master's Degrees by Distance Learning
http://geocities.com/ba_in_4_weeks/

 

Graduate programmes that I have looked at in US institutions seem to be mainly 14-16 semester hours per semester, with a few slightly less. This supports my comparison. Where there appears to be a difference is that a US master's thesis is often set at a notional 6 semester hours for billing purposes, a rating which bears no relation to the actual amount of work involved. In UK we set projects/dissertations with a credit rating related to the amount of work we expect the student to do.

Malcolm S Jenner

 

It's curious to see how two highly intelligent people (Lawrie and professor Kennedy), who promote exactly the same thing (degrees by examination) can have such a heated discussion. Clearly, some misunderstanding is happening.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: All this has got mixed up!

I think we're either forgetting or ignoring the unfortunate fact that some people (even very intelligent people) just don't do well on standardized exams.

Several enlightened professors I've had have recognized this, and give the option of making up a bad exam grade with extra work, usually a research paper that's above and beyond the other course requirements. Luckily, I seem to do well on exams and never had to use this option, but many of my classmates did.


Bruce

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: All this has got mixed up!

============================================

I much agree at least with my understanding of Lawrie's position here. It seems showing that a subject's content has been acquired must be by an exam of some sort.

Assume the midterm was coming due and the material thus far had included 20 topics. Those 20 are easily covered in an exam by the prof saying the midterm will require responses on 5 topics subjectively, but remain mum on which 5! Then were a student to do poorly on that midterm, how could a true remedy be the student does a paper on one issue in one of the 20 topics? How would that narrow product demonstrate competency of the whole? But say somehow the paper did synthesize the 20 someway. Then fine, let the student discuss his paper and by his conversation evince his knowledge. Even a doctoral dissertation may not be a true test of comprehension unless it is defended.

The hardest exam I took was in a verbal mode where we students responded to the prof's deep probing of our comprehension.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: All this has got mixed up!

What is the alternative.....people who just do poorly on exams have no way of making that up?

I have no problem with exams, but they are not the be-all, end-all. Some courses I've taken where I've learned and retained the most (and isn't that the point of education?) were also courses that had no exams at all.

In courses I've taught, I have used exams because the school required it. However, I'd much rather have my students absorb and retain the information, rather then cram it in, regurgitate it onto the test booklet, and then forget it (which I think happens a lot on exams).


Bruce

 

Re: Execuse me!

Probably from me, as I grabbed the number based on the bare minimum scheduling timeframe for completion of all exams. This would, of course, apply only to folks who either (a) already had a strong background in the field or relevant disciplines (reading economics and finance for fun since age 9 or something), and/or (b) could absorb the material in substantially less than 1,800 hours (and I have met such people; Good Will Hunting is not as far from the truth as one might think). If the number's screwy, please let me know--I certainly agree, and usually say, that while it is technically possible to do the MBA in 7 months, the vast majority of people cannot. And, of course, I never meant to suggest that the degree was in any way substandard--just refreshingly lacking in bureaucratic delays and rote work. (Bear in mind you're talking to someone who did 113 sh of his bachelor's by exam.)


Cheers,

 

Exam regimes

An examination regime provides a third party assessment of a person's knowledge, understanding, application and evaluation. The issue is third party. Of course, all regimes have defects but in my view third party assessment has the least defects.

It rejects some candidates who might well be competent in all dimensions but the consequence is better for the integrity of the process than when it passes some candidates who are not competent (however defined). In some cases, the passing of people who do not deserve to pass can have life or death effects on innocent people reliant on the third party assessment that they are competent.

However, there are third party assessment regimes of varying reliability. At the 'soft' end there are open book, choice of questions of varying duration from 3 hours downwards, and assignments, projects, team exercises, and other 'out of sight' of the third party, opportunity for class teachers or tutors to 'hint' to varying degrees exam topics, etc. I would also include preparing a project on the exam topics for a viva voce and schemes that award marks for performance in class, attendance, prior qualifications, etc.

At the 'hard' end are closed book, no choice of questions of 3 hours duration, no possibility of 'hints', a variety of test instruments - MCQs (to test knowledge of the concepts), Cases to test analysis and application of the concepts and essay to test synthesis and evaluation. The candidate has to have prepared to answer these instruments by covering the entire syllabus.

I am an unrepentent believer in the latter regime. It is not followed by every or even most Business Schools. It is by EBS. If it does not suit a student he or she can attend other Schools and there are plenty. Interestingly, those Schools (including Harvard in the US ) that examine at various degrees of closeness to the soft end of the regime spectrum are the ones suffering from 'grade inflation', 'dumbing down' and general lack of confidence in the integrity of their exams.

 

Yes, but

Bruce: "Some courses I've taken where I've learned and retained the most (and isn't that the point of education?) were also courses that had no exams at all. "

I believe you but 'thousands wouldn't' and that is the problem that you are ignoring. That is why we have third party assessment - 'self praise being no recommendation' - otherwise known as exams. Self certification is believable as a conversation piece but not as a relaibale guide to a person's competence (however defined).

The point of education includes many worthwhile properties. The part of a class (in Economic History) that I most enjoyed as an undergraduate in Scotland was on the the US Constitution and I read far more widely books, articles, essays not on the class list for that class than any other (including all the Maddison Papers).

But education is also about certification - able to demonstrate to the rest of the world that we are competent. Its too expensive to take self-certification on trust when applied to hundreds of thousands of people. We certainly would not accept self-certified pilots, surgeons, and electricians or gas fitters. If they have to be certificated but not others where do we draw the line? Who gets to teach at a University between you and the other guy who is also self-certificated? Anybody who wants to?

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: All this has got mixed up!

I will grant that, but it is a 'test' in a different sense of the word. You seem to be talking about thinking, about conscious self-aware cognition or something. I was talking about the kind of assessments that take place when universities grant prior learning credit by examination.

I'm not arguing against that latter practice. I'm just pointing out that the *prior learning* can't be ignored in prior learning assessment. In particular, it can't be collapsed into and identified with the examinations that serve to identify its presence.

But people aren't granted university degrees simply for being subjectively aware of things. A university degree is a certification that a student's education has met a socially recognized standard. That's what introduces the issue of objectivity.

Obviously all of us know a great deal that has never been put to such a test. If that weren't the case, then what's the purpose of prior learning assessment? The whole concept of PLA depends on the recognition that unassessed learning is possible and exists.

If you are arguing that education can't take place without some cognitive process occurring in the learner, I'll grant that while questioning its relevance. If you are arguing that learning can't take place unless the student subsequently takes an examination, I'll dismiss that as ridiculous.

I think that this is an example of the fallacy of equivocation. The word 'test' is being used in two very different senses: the broad one of self-aware conscious experience, and the narrow one of university examinations.

Let me review what issue I am addressing here. Telfax had written:

Telfax wasn't denying that some inner process occurs in the learner. What he was questioning is whether "passing written examinations" can capture that inner process in its entirety. And perhaps he was questioning whether passing written examinations is really education's ultimate goal.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: All this has got mixed up!

 

Re: Yes, but

Well, I certainly wouldn't get on a plane with a self-certified pilot, but I also know that certification to be a physician, pilot, electrician, etc. also involves a lot of hands-on testing...that is, actually doing it.

There is something about sitting down in front of a paper/computer exam that just scares the hell out of a lot of people (thankfully I'm not one of them). Of course exams can be and are valuable assessment tools......all I'm saying is that they're not a foolproof gauge of content mastery.


Bruce

 

I agree, but

Bruce, I agree, but toughe xam regimes are the least worst method (much like democracy, as Churchill said, which has many defects but these are of less import than the rivals to democracy).

Universities I have taught it tried many non-examination systems or amended examination systems. These all had worse defects in one form or another. Like the guy said in the film: 'show me the money'; we tell candidates: 'show us the evidence'.

And to make sure that there is a level playing field, we insist that the rules of evidence are the same for everybody we test. The more exceptions, the less valid the test.

 

Re: Re: Execuse me!

Huh? No Tom, not from you. You carry no responsibility. Managed come to that radical conclusion on my own.

This figure was given in response to Gavin's declared criteria of probable trash, when assessing master's degree programs. He also worried about the motivation of some who post here*, who would choose this "trash". Perhaps their motives were less than honorable?

These issue, arose, well, because it is the subject of this thread. The cheap and/or accelerated master's was not to his liking. Since I have a web page full of speedy bargains, I responded.


Gavin held that the three indicators of likely trash were:

1 Short minimum time to completion
2 Too Low cost (AKA cheap)
3 Less than the normal number of courses




JUDGE YE NOT LEST YE BE JUDGED
Gavin held that one criterion likely identifying trash, would be minimum time to completion. With respect to MBA degrees for which we have direct comparison, I noted that using Gavin's own criteria, HW would be deemed likely trash, since it failed, among other things, the "minimum time" criterion.

Gavin protested that few could complete in that seven month frame. I suggested that other professors in the institutions condemned by his criteria, might say exactly the same thing, or point to some related mitigating fact.

When judging "likely trash", others would do so with the same cursory inspection Gavin had employed in trashing them. It's there in the documentation, you can complete in two diets. They would not go to the professors and administrators of the defendant institutions to lend a sympathetic ear, or delve deep among the nuances of the numbers. Gavin has not done so, why would they give him a dispensation not granted to them?

Other criteria included price of program and number of courses. I noted that the HW MBA cost $7426, and that this figure was near the bottom end of the MBA price scale, and indeed, the master's programs "all comers" price scale. So it was that HW failed another criterion. That's two out of three.

The third criterion was number of courses. Since HWMBA is nine courses in length, and these days most MBA programs are twelve courses and the rest ten courses, that HW didn't come off too well here either.


HWMBA score: failed three out of three of Gavin's indicators of likely trash.


Gavin protested the this was all a great injustice, a cry likely to be echoed in every college and university with reputation so besmirched. Gavin brought forth a plethora of points in mitigation, an indignant defender of HW to the last. I suggested that if, as likely, others gave HW the same hearing he had given them, no amount of red-faced buts would matter.

By Gavin's own criteria, the Heriot Watt MBA is trash, or likely trash. I am not condemning HW, this set of arbitrary benchmarks do. I did not produce and publish them here, Gavin did. The irony was Professor Kennedy's outrage that, in his view, I had unfairly judged the HWMBA.

Judge ye not lest ye be judged by thine own arbitrary and capricious criteria.

Heriot Watt and its wares do not deserve to be stigmatized. Those who pursue a Heriot Watt degree do not deserve to have doubt cast upon their motivations or veracity simply because of that choice.

And if Heriot Watt, although fitting Gavin's criteria, is undeserving of scorn, how should we judge other institutions and their wares, meeting Gavin's criteria? Should we treat their students and adherents with suspicion and (possibly) scorn, for it is Gavin's argument that we should. One rule for me and another for you.


This does not mean there should be no judgment of relative quality between programs and between providers, but that judgment must be made in terms of outcomes, by objective assessment of the relative academic performance of the graduates of the programs and institutions under scrutiny. Declarations of trash and quality must be made on the bases of empirical evidence and the use of valid methods and techniques in interpreting and drawing conclusions from that evidence.




Lawrie Miller
author: Accelerated Master's Degrees by Distance Learning - Degrees for ordinary people
http://geocities.com/ba_in_4_weeks/




*Professor Kennedy's original quote
"The tendency for contributors to this site to find the
'cheapest', the 'least number of credits' and the 'shortest time to
gradation' and so on, worries me. How about standards? "

 

Once again, a weary journey

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

It ill behoves the innocent to keep defending themselves.

For the record, again:

I did Not say that the 'cheapest, the 'least credits' or the 'shortest time to graduation' was trash, or necessarily so. I said that what worried me was that 'standards' did not appear in the criteria of the programme for which some people were searching for a degree.

That to even the slowest, dumbest and the most irrascible of people was a cause of my worry. Then I ran into the brick wall called Lawrie whopunts a programme at bachelor level called a 'BA in four weeks', a concept of which I had not taken much notice as I do not teach at undergraduate level, and have not since 1982 (doesn't time fly when you are having fun).

Guns blazing, indignation rampant and 'no prisoners here, Lawrie keeps grinding on, and on and on.

FACT: I have since checked in our data base but had not thought it worthwhile to report to readers as I am sure you had already taken the point: nobody - zero data - had passed the EBS MBA in two diets out of 6,000 graduates. I believe that nobody could pass nine subjects in less than three diets, which implies the seven month possibility is a mirage, a figment of the imagination and a purely theoretical dream of a fantasist. That this is used to make a wholly unnecessary point is, well, tiresome. But if Lawrie wishes to keep making it, so be it. We all carry burdens on our life's journey, and Lawrie appears to be another one.

Is there any point suggesting Lawrie re-read the statement? Probably not. He seems to be the kind of person who once he makes up his mind, that's it. Fine: I bow on the other hand, following Shakespear's dictum: 'Good reason, of force, must give way to better' (er, Caesar: however it was said by a character who dies in the next scene, so perhaps is not a happy example to follow).

I made no reference to 'trash' - an Americanism I think. I said I think standards are more important than the factors some people seem to consider to be more so. So be it. We disagree. Big deal. You take your road and I'll take mine. Most Business Schools have taken your road. But in truth and standards, the majority view is not necessarily identical or even correlated to the right view.

I believe performance is measured by output only - I have even repeated my view that if you cannot tell the difference between samples there is no way to say one is better than another - a point that Lawrie questioned (his red mist closing in too fast to read what I had said) until he realised it clarified his own position. Of the merits of a Bachelor degree in 4 weeks I have no view, except that the same theme of an 'easy' way to success was purveyed by the enemies of standards. I do not care if you do a degree for nothing, with 100 per cent credits and in 4 days, as long as it meets the standards because standards are everything, especially in distance learning.

OK? Peace brother? For everybody's sake, give it a rest. I am sure your many friends at degreeinfo.com would appreciate a rest from your bile.

 

Re: Once again, a weary journey

For you have surely brewed enough for the both of us.


Gavin in the relevant post
:The tendency for contributors to this site to find the 'cheapest', the 'least number of credits' and the 'shortest time to gradation' and so on, worries me. How about standards? "


I am not angry about this, you are angry. I thought my post explanatory and to an extent, conciliatory, but whatever. This is not personal. I don't read any invective or attack in my last post. Things may get heated now and then but soon it is over.

The whole point was:
This does not mean there should be no judgment of relative quality between programs and between providers, but that judgment must be made in terms of outcomes, by objective assessment of the relative academic performance of the graduates of the programs and institutions under scrutiny. Declarations of trash and quality must be made on the bases of empirical evidence and the use of valid methods and techniques in interpreting and drawing conclusions from that evidence.

Gavin:
Of the merits of a Bachelor degree in 4 weeks I have no view,

Gavin in the previous post, the context of which left no doubt the target was moi and BA in 4 Weeks
"People offering 'easy' routes to competence may be well intentioned, even saintly, but they do the people who 'buy' these schemes and invest their time and money in trying them no favors"

I think the evidence suggests you do have a view. I think you express that view quite frequently, by this means or that, which is fine. I will express my view with the same degree of freedom and with the same passion as do you. No amount of invective or peak hurled or displayed by the another will change that.

So, let reason and rational discourse prevail. I think no more or less of you because you are a passionate man, but let us address the meat of the issues and eschew vendetta.


Lawrie Miller
author: BA in 4 Weeks and Accelerated Master's Degrees by Distance Learning
http://geocities.com/ba_in_4_weeks/

 

Re: Isn't all this very depressing!

But the fact of the matter is in the real world, cost DOES make a difference and credit hours ARE important to degree completion and being able to reasonably afford college.

Anyone simply wishing to increase his/her knowledge on a particular subject can, for free or fee depending on the source, go to a library, attend seminars, hire a tutor, observation, etc.

In the US, a formal education is sought after more for employment/economical reasons than simply learning. Having that "piece of paper" has become increasingly important in developing your career path.

As one Naval Officer said, "All a degree shows is that you can start a program of higher learning and have the commitment to follow it out to completion. It doesn't make you better than anybody else." I agree. And I'm only a 22 year old E-3 in the Navy, with my BS (in 6 months in general business.

Could I do everything that those officers do without a BA degree? Sure! Many of us could. But in order for me to get my commission, what does the instruction say? "BA or higher degree from an accredited college or university"

Check out this article on college costs:
http://www.collegeboard.com/press/article/0,3183,29541,00.html

I admire your comittment to academia, but what an expensive way to "learn!" Education take place in MANY forms, and is not limited to inside-a-classroom-instruction. Perhaps you already knew this, but it seems like in your post, you leaned towards the idea that traditional education is the only way that people can 'think, criticise and analyze'

BTW, if the US gov't bureaucrats really wanted the majority to have a higher education, the would just subsidize all public colleges and universities directly with little out of pocket cost for the student. So at least there would be little economical excuse to not attend college.

 

It is also mistaken to consider that the poor person who would very much like to skimp on costs is similarly trying to skimp on standards. The two things don't correlate. Thank you for your perceptive post.

 

Re: UK Masters

I agree that the issue of "standards" seems to be absent from this thread. I also fear that the fastest, least credits approach to distance learning tends to lend credibility to it's critics.

On the other hand the US has created a degree fanatical society, inwhich many qualified employees find that they will not be promoted or hired without the required diploma. In these cases cheapest, fastest, least effort becomes a matter of utility, with the higher ideals of traditional education left to those with the time and money to indulge.