“Sarah Hofer and a group of researchers from ETH Zurich asked high school physics teachers with limited teaching experience to grade an online written exam question. A total of 780 instructors from Germany, Austria and Switzerland were given a fictional and only partially correct answer to an exam question in the field of classical mechanics.
The only difference — half the instructors were led to believe the student was male and the other half thought the student was female, according to the study published in the International Journal of Science Education.
Researchers noted that while teachers with ten or more years of experience showed no bias, less-experienced teachers graded the students they thought were women with lower scores.
“Teachers with less teaching experience are possibly more guided by the bias that girls are worse in physics than boys when grading,” Hofer said, according to ETH Zurich’s publication.
Elizabeth Stern, professor for Empirical Educational Research, said the difference in grades for the exact same answer is part of a problem in academia with girls entering what are known as STEM fields — science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
“Girls and women cannot count on being rewarded for their effort,” she said. “As a girl, when you already have the feeling in school that you won’t be fairly graded in sciences, then you tend to lose interest in these subjects.”
Read the full piece here
Also this came out last week: Sexism Valley: 60% of Women in Silicon Valley Experience Harassment
Blog
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Study Proves That Physics Teachers Tend to Give Girls Lower Grades Than Boys for the Exact Same Questions
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@aminorjourney… Wish you were here… ;) on Flickr.
@aminorjourney… Wish you were here… ;)
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And we are nearly here… on Flickr.
And we are nearly here…
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Not being an audiophile.
So, I picked up a slightly sad Technics SL-6 turntable off ebay. It was my post-move treat. A new turntable to replace the two that I’d sold in the UK. As we left I’d been prodding at the idea of a linear tracking turntable, just because it was interesting conceptually. Then I discovered these entertainingly technology based “Oh god, CDs are going to kill us” automatic turntables, slot loading, programmable, sometimes play both sides (and probably dance for you) ridiculotrons. And I thought, that’d be fun. After a period of questing for such a beast I gave in, I couldn’t get a slot-loading linear-tracking turntable at a price I was willing to pay.
Especially since I can’t quite decide if it’s a novelty item, and given my past history of DJing and clubbing, (and my crappy hearing thereby obtained) I probably couldn’t really tell the difference between a really good linear tracker and a 1970s BSR deck in a stereogram.
But I did find a slightly foxed SL-6. And it said the speed was very variable, but otherwise it worked. But handily there are many people who’ve fixed record decks, so I broke out google and found that the Vinyl Engine had the service manual and the youtubes had the ‘look, just clean the switches and variable resistors and it will all be well’. And I decided that I should have the slightly foxed SL6. And it did arrive.
And so I went to Rainy Day Records and raided their 98¢ bin and came back with totally inappropriate records to speed check a deck (Bob Newhart, Allan Sherman and Tom Lehrer), but at least I could see it working.
And the deck did come without a plattermat, so I ebayed a second hand platter mat. And everything was here. And I realised that I was a fool, because the SL-6 has a built in 45 adaptor, and the plattermat did not. But I test assembled it, placed the record on the turntable and off it went. Played, selected tracks, but wow was it wowy. Well, it probably was, because I’d not hooked it up to the amplifier. But even to the naked eye the speed variation was visible.
So today I headed off to get some sewing machine oil, that being the conveniently available record-deck-oil replacement, especially in Oly which seems to be devoid of electronics shops. I had already completed the quest to get some switch cleaner (car shops, they sell switch cleaner).
And then I stripped it down, at least a bit. After an epic battle with the turntable platter I managed to get it off (wiggle it, that’s the key). The center spindle was, indeed, a bit graunchy. Then off came the base.
And out came the main board, and to work I went cleaning contacts.
When I was satisfied I reassembled it, gave the outside a clean, trimmed the plattermat to fit and turned it on. A quick visual check revealed that it seemed to be spinning at a more consistent rate. On with the record.
Swoosh-shhhuk….swoosh-shhhuk….swoosh-shhhuk….swoosh-shhhuk….swoosh-shhhuk….swoosh-shhhuk
And the record seemed to be slowing again at points.
And then I realised.
The random cheap used plattermat? It’s about 0.2mm too thick. It causes the record to foul a piece of the case.
Still, with that removed I could at least test it. Only…
Whilst our house-stilling house has an amplifier with a phono input, it’s not actually connected to any speakers, because they don’t use that amplifier anymore.
…and whilst I have speakers, I don’t have any cables to connect them, because they were built into the walls in our house in Bristol.
Gaaah*.
* Obviously, I also still need to buy it a new stylus too, but that can wait until I can actually hear it and check it’s actually working okay and has no other hideous hideous problems.
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Melissa Harris-Perry Narrowly Escapes An Attack During Iowa Caucuses
Melissa Harris-Perry Narrowly Escapes An Attack During Iowa Caucuses
Melissa Harris-Perry has a rather harrowing tale to tell about a terrible experience at the Iowa caucuses. Rather than paraphrasing it, I’ll let her words speak for themselves.
Monday night I was sitting in a hotel lobby in downtown Des Moines with my back to a wall of windows, my eyes fixed on the TV, my attention wholly focused on early caucus results. I didn’t notice until he was standing right next to me, much closer than is ordinary or comfortable. When he started he speaking it was like he was picking up in the middle of sentence, finishing a conversation we had begun earlier, but I couldn’t remember ever meeting him.
“…So what is it that you teach?”
“I am a professor of political science.”
“My wife is a professor of communications.”
“Does she teach here in Iowa?”
“What I want to know is how you got credentialed to be on MSNBC.”
I am not sure if it is how he spat the word credentialed, or if it is how he took another half step toward me, or if it is how he didn’t respond to my question, but the hairs on my arm stood on end. I ignored it. Told myself everything was ok.
“Well. It is not exactly a credential…” I began.
“But why you? Why would they pick you?”
Now I know something is wrong. Now his voice is angry. Now a few other people have stopped talking and started staring. Now he is so close I can feel his breath. Before I can answer his unanswerable question of why they picked me, he begins to tell me why he has picked me.
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handstandsonthecatastrophecurve:
How do Flat Earthers explain time zones? This isn’t a rhetorical question I want to see their diagrams.
Flat Earthers oughtta call themselves Tiny Sunners because I think that might be the bigger thing going on here.
how the heck does antarctica work here
This diagram is woefully incomplete without Great A’tuin and the Elephants.
0/5 would not conspiracy
Yeah see thing is even that doesn’t make even superficial sense because light just goes out for a while and stops? 0/5 would not worldbuild again either.
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step 1: go to google maps
step 2: search “south australia”
step 3: zoom in once
step 4: drag the little yellow street view dude to maralinga
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Media: I have made an article about science.
Scientists: You’ve ruined a perfectly good research finding is what you’ve done. Look at it. It’s got alarmism. -
Fun with Bureaucracy
So today I had the fun and excitement of transferring the title on our shiny new (decade old) hybrid from its previous (Oregonian) owner to us. The whimpering you heard was us paying fees and taxes on a decade old car.
A trip to the bank and $500 later we had shiny, shiny Washington plates to put on.
Also today I gained a record deck. It needs a service, thankfully the sensor bit of the automated Technics SL6 seems to work, but the speed’s a bit variable. I’ve got a service manual though, so that makes things hopefully a bit easier.
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