#17 - Educator: Some experimental educational programs

[Adam Tyson]

Your analysis of D is good, Albert! "Not precisely determined" is too weak and vague for it to do any damage, and so it does not, by itself, hurt the argument. The author could still respond with "fine, we need to figure that bit out, but we should still do this because it works." And changing answer D the way you suggested would make it a good weaken answer, because it would be a strong counter to the claim that we should expand the program.

[Albertlyu]

Your analysis of D is good, Albert! "Not precisely determined" is too weak and vague for it to do any damage, and so it does not, by itself, hurt the argument. The author could still respond with "fine, we need to figure that bit out, but we should still do this because it works." And changing answer D the way you suggested would make it a good weaken answer, because it would be a strong counter to the claim that we should expand the program.

thank you, Adam. Have a good day!

[Dancingbambarina]

Thanks for asking, lsatstudier. The causal nature of this stimulus is a bit more subtle than some others you've been studying. The key is in recognizing two things: 1) the author gives us a correlation (students in the programs correlates with above average performance); and 2) the author uses some language that is active - specifically, "successful", which can be interpreted as "it worked" or "it caused success". Nothing obvious here, no use of the most common causal indicators, but the correlation combined with the active language in the conclusion should still clue you in. The author believes that the programs caused the higher performance - that should be your paraphrase for the conclusion.

Key words are a great start to recognizing and understanding certain reasoning types like conditional and causal, but once you have those down you need to go a little further and look for more conceptual relationships and work on seeing the underlying assumptions and structures of the arguments. With time and practice, that will come! Keep up the good work.

Would this argument be flawed for causally concluding off this correlation? I estimate the correct answer takes advantage of an alternate cause being available.

Thanks very much

[Luke Haqq]

Hi Dancingbambarina!

If I understand your question correctly, I think that makes sense. The educator seems to assume that the experimental educational programs are successful because students in those programs do better than average. However, if it were the case that their most of their parents had previously been educators, then perhaps it is not the program influencing them to do better but rather their parents' previous experience as educators.

[Dancingbambarina]

Hi Dancingbambarina!

If I understand your question correctly, I think that makes sense. The educator seems to assume that the experimental educational programs are successful because students in those programs do better than average. However, if it were the case that their most of their parents had previously been educators, then perhaps it is not the program influencing them to do better but rather their parents' previous experience as educators.

Your repsonse really helped. Thank you Luke.

The original post seems to force a causal nature of this stimulus I am just not seeing.

To say:

P = program
PI = parent as instructor
BS = child as better student
Cause Effect/Cause Effect

P >PI>BS


is just so mind blowing to me because the first two elements seem strongly one of the same. It just seems "extra" like they're being forced into a causal frame when the whole chain can be broken into (program>better student). I know I'm wrong, though. Please help me understand this 1st original post.

Thank you so much

[Dana D]

Hey Dancing,

I don't think you're wrong - the program is having a parent be the educator. The cause is the program, the effect is a better student. Or:

Program better student.

What answer choice (B) does is introduce an alternative cause for the student's better performance - it's not that the program itself is causing the improvement, it's that these parents are actually former educators, meaning the kids in this program are straight up getting additional education time compared to kids not in the program.

hope that helps!