The large majority of freshmen scoring below 77.5 Alpha drop out before senior year¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r1 · q2
Currency · newest study 1922 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? In the Michigan schools 87 per cent of freshmen scoring below 77.5 drop out before senior year, and in Madsen's Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin group about 84 per cent do, so only about one in seven remains to graduate; among recruits, 78 per cent of those below 85 Alpha were eliminated. → Cobb 1922

Evidence¶

Cobb 1922¶

Cobb, Margaret V. (1922). The Limits Set to Educational Achievement by Limited Intelligence. The Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. XIII, No. 8. https://eric.ed.gov/?q=The+Limits+Set+to+Educational+Achievement+by+Limited+Intelligence

q2 · i? · associational · r1

Section III estimates elimination of the least intelligent freshmen by comparing the number of freshmen scoring below 77.5 with seniors below 90, assuming successive entering classes are of approximately the same size. Among recruits no score adjustment was needed; among officers, where total elimination was about 10 per cent, 24 per cent of those below 85 were still eliminated.

"Comparisons of this kind show that in the Michigan schools, 87 per cent of the freshmen below 77.5 drop out before senior year. In Madsen's group (111., la., and Wis.) about 84 per cent drop out."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Academic high school freshmen show a very wide range of intelligence, but the group as a whole covers about the upper half of the population distribution — related
• University scholarship ratings ran about 16 per cent below high-school ratings for the same students, ranking them only two-thirds as high per hour of study, a gap the authors link to discouragement and withdrawal — related
• About 60 per cent of University of Texas freshmen withdrew permanently each year, based on student-history tracing of 1901–1908 freshman cohorts — related
• Freshmen rank lack of money as the leading cause of elimination, followed by ill-health; the authors attribute about 34 per cent of elimination to lack of means and 28 per cent to ill-health — related
• School and college continuance rise steeply with Army Alpha level among World War recruits — related