NEWS: Americans Suck at Problem Solving Questions

CULTURE: Americans Suck at Problem Solving Questions

It has been known that American children’s test scores in math and science are beginning to bottom out when compared to other industrialized countries, but now literacy and problem solving skills are also beginning to take a hit.

While standardized testing does not quantify other important work/intelligence factors (like ability to improvise), businesses seeking skilled workers may base their decisions to move operations to other countries on these test scores, median wage of country, and the pliancy of the government to grant tax-free status to those companies while operating in the country.

wait, i don't get it.

americans are bad at solving problems? who knew?

This must be a relatively new phenomenon. Either that, or the whole "even the highest US achievers in mathematics literacy and problem solving were outperformed by their peers in industrialized nations" is crap because the exact opposite trend is true at the graduate level. In my own experience and from talking to quite a few professors (both American and foreign), American grad students are dependably better at thinking outside the box.

I wish I could know results of problem solving questions from males and females ages 18-25, that would be interesting. Becuase I haven't met ANYONE who can solve a problem on their own, especially the women (no offense to the women).

My theory, from my (admitedly brief) outsider's observation of your education system would be that underfunded American schools do not teach children to think, or to question. It is rediculous to argue that Americans are stupider en masse than other people, but if children are taught to be quiet and accept what they are told, they are unlikely to excel at anything requiring a lot of thought.

On the other hand, graduate students are almost always required to learn how to think for themselves, and how to question, and how to argue and disbelieve. Which would mean that poor quality high schools would have little effect on those who manage to reach post-graduate education.

Of course, I have little-to-nothing I can use to back this up, being a far-away forgiener with limited knowledge about American Education.

[Edited on Dec 07, 2004 9:22PM]

Sadly Id concur. Its all about falling in line and blind obediance and respect for authority etc.
Itd also help if mathematics wasnt structured solely around stupid hey lets try to push our students TOO hard to ace a bunch of standardized tests on memorization only to not recall anything because you cant remember it due to having to supercram.
Go figure. At least my take on it.
The graduate school level however is a whole different matter.

Ironically the only thing keeping me from a solid post-graduate education are money and shitty algebra skills
Go figure. Then again math is my weak suit. Catch me in the life sciences, or the social sciences.... yeah. ouch for you

the real question is, how do we solve this problem?

*groan*

A couple things about some of the comments here: The study was conducted on 15-year-olds from numerous countries from both OECD and non-OECD members. According to the report released, they selected the age at which teenagers, regardless of nationality, begin to question the need for their formal education.

The full report contains a wealth of information, including breakdowns, per country, based on wealth, nationality of the student, nationality of their parents, sex, and other factors. They also measure the difference between problem solving and mathematical abilities.

So for you SG members in Finland, your country's ranked #1 again.

what point is there for american children to learn math and science when the jobs that require it are being sold to the lowest bidder in india?

Is it true that US schoolchildren are taught to "bubble in" before they're taught to read or write?

I think I've found the root of the problem here...

How's anyone gonna do well in it if they can't even tell it's MATHS?!!

I have no idea what this means.
I'm intrigued.

"bubble in" means colour in the multiple choice bubble they use on computer marked test papers.

i saw that in something... might have been super size me, when they were talknig about how the kids have no time for nutritional education because they're too busy doing standardised tests. maybe on the commentary... but yeah, i have certainly heard that said.

You guys are both completely correct in your comments. I am actually in the middle of writing a book on the evolution of the human mind entitled: The Innate. It's both anthropological and philosophical, if they can actually co-exist. Problem solving skills are absolutely the result of the encouragement of non-subjective abstract thought; which is horribly dwindling in this country. There does indeed seem to be a very harsh shift in paradigm to focus more on obeyance and acceptance, I'd go so far as to say this is happening throughout our entire nation of people, not just our educational system. I believe the lack of education on objective thought, which sadly enough is barely encountered even when there are art and music programs that have not yet been destroyed, is creating an army of uncurious brains that refuse to accept anything other than the ideals thrown at them by their peers, television, and other media. I honestly believe this to be the largest problem facing our nation, because if there are problems in government or in personal life, there will be no challengers, as they cannot either decipher what is truly going on nor create an effective plan to carry out. The human brain splits the tangible world into two very distinct forms, which I label as concrete and abstract. The concrete world is all things determined by spacial recognition or mechanical process. Spatial recognition is simply mathematics, as math is just a study of gaps, meaning the places between digits in a non-existing plane. Then there is abstract: which is the understanding of all things interpretation. The best art is not well known because of its image, but rather its meaning. The human mind is universal in contemplating symbolism. A dove is not merely a bird in a painting, it is meant to symbolize by its key concepts what the artist believes it to: be it love, peace, or diseased pelicans force feeding a sedated elderly woman in undersized capri pants. Yes, doves can represent that. I visit these message boards on occasion and am rather astounded by how much impartial thought occurs here. One would think a site such as this would have merely angered and isolated youths spouting nonsensical rage; however, I was relieved to see other people have a firm comprehension on what are the true problems. My mother is actually an elementary teacher and she believes the difficulty is the result of bad parenting. But she's never ever listened to me for two seconds, so I gave up years ago.

[Edited on Dec 07, 2004 7:55AM]

One of my biggest gripes with U.S. education is a lack of skilled math teachers. In my experience, most math teachers are good at math, but horrible at teaching. They got a math degree in college, because they were good at it, but then realized that they had limited options in terms of profession. They didn't want to be an actuary or go on to be a professor, so they decided to get certified to educate and teach secondary math. I should note that I have no bitterness toward these bad teachers; they are doing work that they may dislike quite a bit, to pay the bills. That's honorable. But it is disastrous in terms of getting kids not to fear math.

People who are good at math are often the worst math teachers, because they are good at math. The key skills, in my experience, in math problem solving are the ability to break a problem down into sub-problems and a willingness to back out of a failing branch of sub-problems without frustration. Usually students have absolutely no problem solving each sub-problem, and if you walk them through the sub-problems they will often be surprised to find that they solved the whole problem without any actual answers from the teacher... just questions.

Unfortunately, a lot of math teachers just demonstrate the method on the board, assign some problems, and respond to any questions by simply doing the problem in full. They don't teach kids how to recognize classes of problems, how to make sensible guesses as to what the next sub-problem is, and how to feel okay about backing out of a failed line of questioning.

Anyway, that is my gripe about math education here. In my experience, the students who got good at math problem solving were the ones who enjoyed it enough to go learn on our own, and the ones who hung around with those people.

so check it out www.ipimp.org is putting a calendar together with all the profits to go to arts and sciences programs for public schools.
we see this problem and are doing somthing about it .
what the fuck are you doing?
just bitching .

Beat me to it.

I'd suggest ways of solving the problem, but I'm a 25 yr. old American female, so I'd probably be wrong.

No kidding we are idiots.

We live in an industrial country, true, but still like 90% of our nation is farmland backwaters and such.

Um, but according to the study, the "backwaters" folk aren't the ones who have trouble reading.

"It's easy to like "I Am Sam," but it's also a movie that becomes disingenuous in its demand to be loved says Ed Blank of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review."

Now that's not fair. I mean, he's really dumb!

that's hot!

competitively our students suck right now and they aren't getting any less sucky because bush is busy funnelling our school money to the rich and powerful.

sucks.