Long Term Results

So, we went through a few years of kindergarten, and 12 years of school. What have we got to show for it? What did we keep? Some studies were done to figure it out, but I would like to take a naive and fresh approach.

Before doing a comprehensive study, it would be good to feel the water - to get a few ideas about the direction to go. A simple survey can be a good start.

Subject-matter:

A comprehensive study would go over all the skills, materials and possibly habits taught at school. For the survey, e can select a just few subjects: English-as-a-second-language is a good candidate for a highly useful skill. Math is a good candidate for a common technical skill. History is a commonly taught non-technical subject. Habits are rather difficult to survey, so we can defer that part of the study to a later stage.

Audience:

The ultimate research should include people from 18-year-old K12 graduates to retirement and beyond. As a starting point, an initial survey would do less. First year university students are an interesting group. They are relatively well educated - otherwise they wouldn't have been accepted; Their attitude towards studying is apparently positive - for whatever reason - since they are interested in studying more. It would be particularly interesting to survey students who are going to different faculties: Some related to the subject matters chosen, like History; Some unrelated, like Medicine. The next interesting group would be 30-35 year-olds: Some may be professionals in fields that require Math and English, some not. With these people, usefulness of the studied material is the main issue - recognition and retention of information and skills not relevant to their life maybe less interesting. A wider study can include people approaching retirement. With them what they studied is less likely to be of any use anymore (when was the last time you used a slide-rule to calculate anything?). However, with the almost-retired, we may get a good sense of what can be useful across a lifetime.

Types of questions:

Recognition - in order to check if people recognize what they studied. Using the quadratic equation as an example, we can ask "Do you know what a quadratic equation is?" or show a quadratic equation and ask what it is. We may get very different results depending whether it's an open question or a multiple-choice.

Usefulness - "When was the last time you used a quadratic equation?" Let me guess: At 12th grade?

Retention - Solve this: "4.5X² - 10X + 8 = 0" Let me guess: You couldn't if your life depended on it? That's ok.

Another type of question that may be good for an initial survey, or can be deferred to an eventual study, is a question to check if the issue has a relevant Meaning for the surveyed person: "Can you give an example of where a quadratic equation is useful?" An example familiar to everybody is that of a stone being thrown. The stone carves - roughly - a parabola through the air, and a parabola can be described by a quadratic equation.

One last thought: Talking about such a survey, some people expect that the results will show very poor retention and usefulness, and that it is terrible. I agree only halfway: I also expect the results to show very low retention and usefulness, but I think it's great! It would mean that we probably don't need to learn as many different aspects of as many different subjects, and it will free a lot of studying-time for more important knowledge, skills and habits.