Why would Jackson take the Wonderlic test and not - -

[Albwan]

On 3/29/2018 at 10:02 PM, Punt75 said:

- - - run the 40 yard dash at the NFL combine or at his recent Pro Day??? 

 

ALL the combine events are optional.  Why take a test that has been proven to be very culturally & racially biased based on an individuals education and life experiences at a young age?  All NFL executives know this but get a bit nervous picking a team leader (QB) with a low score.

 

Reading and paying attention at school and learning is racist now, too?

Edited March 31, 2018 by Albwan

[BringBackOrton]

1 hour ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

I believe that would be a very hard contention to defend rationally .  How fast one can move 40 yards and how many times one can propel a given weight upward are about as objective as one can get.

 

Even if you are a staunch believer that intelligence and other standardized tests in general, and the Wonderlic i particular, are not culturally or racially biased, it seems to me it must logically be acknowledged that the questions used allow more potential for bias than a totally objective metric.

 

 

 

Just like the 40 and the bench press, the Wonderlic can be prepared for and conquered.

 

"Racial bias" is a BS excuse for a couple of players who didn't care enough to prepare.

[Lothar]

The Wonderlic remains a tool that garners more notoriety than it deserves since it doesn't really show a correlation between score and success.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-a-multiple-choice-test-became-a-fixture-of-the-nfl-draft/

When it comes to football, is the test a demonstrably reasonable measure of job performance? Because official NFL Wonderlic scores aren’t publicly available, it’s difficult to know for sure, but that hasn’t stopped researchers from attempting to find out. Brian D. Lyons, Brian J. Hoffman, and John W. Michel 8 co-authored a 2009 study examining the reported 9 Wonderlic scores of 762 NFL players from three draft classes. They found that there was little correlation between Wonderlic scores and on-field performance, except for two positions: Tight ends and defensive backs with low scores actually played better than those with high scores. The researchers surmised that this “could be explained by the notion that performance for these positions entails more of an emphasis on physical ability and instinct” than general mental ability.

[GoBills808]

13 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Long ago, when it snowed 3 feet every month and we all walked to school and back uphill both ways, young Hapless went away to a rather well known school in Beantown and struggled to pass Calculus, despite having actually taken Calculus at (what was then) State Teachers' College in Buffalo, and received an A.  Hapless had a fraternity Big Brother who was All World in Math and asked him for help.  "Those are differentials" said he.  "That's an integral.  What don't you understand?"

 

I tell this tale to make 2 points:

1) the quality of the instruction, expectations, and peer group have a huge impact on the quality of the education one receives.  Alert the media: the expectations and material covered in a calculus class taught at Buff State vs at some tech school where the average math SAT score is 790 differ.  The quality of the basic math curricula at different HS can vary just that much

2) People who have achieved a level of competency in a subject have a tendency, like Hapless' Math Genius "Big Brother", to lose the ability to perceive what the knowledge gaps that hinder others may be.

 

I could go through the online tests I took, which have "gimme" questions like Dingus posted, and which also have some questions I regard as rather obscure, and pull out the latter.

I could post links to articles questioning the job-relatedness and bias of the Wonderlic like this one:

 

"Like the Scholastic Assessment Test, which the NCAA uses to help determine freshman eligibility, the Wonderlic has been criticized for failing to accurately measure learning ability.

College entrance exams have been accused of cultural bias against minorities and women and thus misleading in predicting academic success.  According to data supplied by the testers, the median score in 1992 for all those between ages 16 and 72 was 21.58 out of 50. Whites' median was 22.76, African Americans' 16.20 and Hispanics' 17.26. The Wonderlic test has been rejected by the courts perhaps more than any other test as not being job related," said Richard Seymour of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a Washington-based advocacy group."

 

Now maybe that 6.5 average point differential between blacks and whites means the blacks are smarter.  Or maybe it means something else: different educational opportunities, or different cultural immersion, or different resources for test prep.

 

On Jackson's 13, I got nuttin - it seems to me a guy who can read and who prepares ought to be able to do better.  My score on my second test was 42.  See point 2) above.

But on the point that there may be racial bias in things like the chosen meanings of the word comparator pairs, and the type of math problems - yeah, it's an issue that will continue to haunt these kinds of tests.

 

The real question, IMO is captured in another quote from the same article I linked:

"Seymour said if the NFL wants to measure cognitive skills, it should give athletes a playbook and quiz them.

"But the idea that you can get a useful prediction of ability to learn plays by testing people on vocabulary, on complex sentence construction, it's not the real world," he said."

 

This is a very different argument, and one I happen to find a lot of agreement in, than 'standardized tests are racially biased'.

[BringBackOrton]

12 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Long ago, when it snowed 3 feet every month and we all walked to school and back uphill both ways, young Hapless went away to a rather well known school in Beantown and struggled to pass Calculus, despite having actually taken Calculus at (what was then) State Teachers' College in Buffalo, and received an A.  Hapless had a fraternity Big Brother who was All World in Math and asked him for help.  "Those are differentials" said he.  "That's an integral.  What don't you understand?"

 

I tell this tale to make 2 points:

1) the quality of the instruction, expectations, and peer group have a huge impact on the quality of the education one receives.  Alert the media: the expectations and material covered in a calculus class taught at Buff State vs at some tech school where the average math SAT score is 790 differ.  The quality of the basic math curricula at different HS can vary just that much

2) People who have achieved a level of competency in a subject have a tendency, like Hapless' Math Genius "Big Brother", to lose the ability to perceive what the knowledge gaps that hinder others may be.

 

I could go through the online tests I took, which have "gimme" questions like Dingus posted, and which also have some questions I regard as rather obscure, and pull out the latter.

I could post links to articles questioning the job-relatedness and bias of the Wonderlic like this one:

 

"Like the Scholastic Assessment Test, which the NCAA uses to help determine freshman eligibility, the Wonderlic has been criticized for failing to accurately measure learning ability.

College entrance exams have been accused of cultural bias against minorities and women and thus misleading in predicting academic success.  According to data supplied by the testers, the median score in 1992 for all those between ages 16 and 72 was 21.58 out of 50. Whites' median was 22.76, African Americans' 16.20 and Hispanics' 17.26. The Wonderlic test has been rejected by the courts perhaps more than any other test as not being job related," said Richard Seymour of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a Washington-based advocacy group."

 

Now maybe that 6.5 average point differential between blacks and whites means the blacks are smarter.  Or maybe it means something else: different educational opportunities, or different cultural immersion, or different resources for test prep.

 

On Jackson's 13, I got nuttin - it seems to me a guy who can read and who prepares ought to be able to do better.  My score on my second test was 42.  See point 2) above.

But on the point that there may be racial bias in things like the chosen meanings of the word comparator pairs, and the type of math problems - yeah, it's an issue that will continue to haunt these kinds of tests.

 

The real question, IMO is captured in another quote from the same article I linked:

"Seymour said if the NFL wants to measure cognitive skills, it should give athletes a playbook and quiz them.

"But the idea that you can get a useful prediction of ability to learn plays by testing people on vocabulary, on complex sentence construction, it's not the real world," he said."

 

It's not about learning plays.  It's about adaptability, preparedness, how much you care to do well.

 

The evidence that the Wonderlic is racially biased is because some races don't do as well on it.  Is the 40 yard dash racially biased because Asian's aren't that good at it?

[GoBills808]

1 hour ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

I believe that would be a very hard contention to defend rationally .  How fast one can move 40 yards and how many times one can propel a given weight upward are about as objective as one can get.

 

Even if you are a staunch believer that intelligence and other standardized tests in general, and the Wonderlic i particular, are not culturally or racially biased, it seems to me it must logically be acknowledged that the questions used allow more potential for bias than a totally objective metric.

 

 

 

I fail to see how mathematics and reading comprehension are less objective metrics than the 40 yard dash and bench press.

[BringBackOrton]

3 minutes ago, GoBills808 said:

I fail to see how mathematics and reading comprehension are less objective metrics than the 40 yard dash and bench press.

Math is super fluid man.  6 times 5 times 4 only equals 120 in Hispanic neighborhoods.

[PIZ]

I'm not defending the 13 score, BUT, there are several versions of the Wonderlic.  The one BigDingus references is obviously an easy version.  It is nothing like the version I use.  If Lamar Jackson got a 13 on the easy version, he would get a 0 on the one I use.  Couple questions I don't know the answers to:

 

1.  Do all draftees receive the same Wonderlic version?

 

2.  Do teams like the Bills test these guys themselves when they come in for a visit?

 

3.  If he had an agent, would the agent make sure he didn't get the most difficult version, and/or would the agent prep him for the test?

 

4.  Could someone be bribed into manipulating his score, so he drops in the draft?  How secure is the grading?

 

[Lothar]

1 minute ago, PIZ said:

I'm not defending the 13 score, BUT, there are several versions of the Wonderlic.  The one BigDingus references is obviously an easy version.  It is nothing like the version I use.  If Lamar Jackson got a 13 on the easy version, he would get a 0 on the one I use.  Couple questions I don't know the answers to:

 

1.  Do all draftees receive the same Wonderlic version?

 

2.  Do teams like the Bills test these guys themselves when they come in for a visit?

 

3.  If he had an agent, would the agent make sure he didn't get the most difficult version, and/or would the agent prep him for the test?

 

4.  Could someone be bribed into manipulating his score, so he drops in the draft?  How secure is the grading?

 

According to the article I referenced from 538 earlier, at least half of the leaked scores are fake. I'm not sure whether teams do so in an effort to get players to drop or agents do so to get players to rise but the bottom line is don't trust those numbers. And also because there is no correlation to success on the football field except for a negative one with tight ends and defensive backs.

[PIZ]

3 minutes ago, Lothar said:

According to the article I referenced from 538 earlier, at least half of the leaked scores are fake. I'm not sure whether teams do so in an effort to get players to drop or agents do so to get players to rise but the bottom line is don't trust those numbers. And also because there is no correlation to success on the football field except for a negative one with tight ends and defensive backs.

 

Thanks.  I'll check out the article.

[Rochesterfan]

1 hour ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

 

I could go through the online tests I took, which have "gimme" questions like Dingus posted, and which also have some questions I regard as rather obscure, and pull out the latter.

I could post links to articles questioning the job-relatedness and bias of the Wonderlic like this one:

 

"Like the Scholastic Assessment Test, which the NCAA uses to help determine freshman eligibility, the Wonderlic has been criticized for failing to accurately measure learning ability.

College entrance exams have been accused of cultural bias against minorities and women and thus misleading in predicting academic success.  According to data supplied by the testers, the median score in 1992 for all those between ages 16 and 72 was 21.58 out of 50. Whites' median was 22.76, African Americans' 16.20 and Hispanics' 17.26. The Wonderlic test has been rejected by the courts perhaps more than any other test as not being job related," said Richard Seymour of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a Washington-based advocacy group."

 

Now maybe that 6.5 average point differential between blacks and whites means the blacks are smarter.  Or maybe it means something else: different educational opportunities, or different cultural immersion, or different resources for test prep.

 

On Jackson's 13, I got nuttin - it seems to me a guy who can read and who prepares ought to be able to do better.  My score on my second test was 42.  See point 2) above.

But on the point that there may be racial bias in things like the chosen meanings of the word comparator pairs, and the type of math problems - yeah, it's an issue that will continue to haunt these kinds of tests.

 

 

 

 

This is is exactly what I was talking about and your whole post is correct, but I want to focus on the little bit I left in.

 

When reviewed by itself the overall results for most of these exams show definite racial and cultural bias. As you bring in socioeconomic comparators - the bias lessens when comparing across race and culture.  

 

I think that if everyone believes the NFL uses this as a measurement of intelligence - I think that is wrong.  I think they use it as a pressure gauge and a preparation monitor more now because so many rookies go through prep classes - it let’s you know if they are putting in the time.

 

A low score is still a flag for many of these guys, but not as much as years ago before everyone had prep access.

 

 

[Doc]

3 hours ago, Lothar said:

According to the article I referenced from 538 earlier, at least half of the leaked scores are fake. I'm not sure whether teams do so in an effort to get players to drop or agents do so to get players to rise but the bottom line is don't trust those numbers. And also because there is no correlation to success on the football field except for a negative one with tight ends and defensive backs.

 

There is no need for a team or teams to leak fake scores.  Every team gets the real scores. 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

3 hours ago, GoBills808 said:

I fail to see how mathematics and reading comprehension are less objective metrics than the 40 yard dash and bench press.

 

Mathematics per se as in the answer to "if your dinner cost $19.53 and you pay $50.01, what is your change?" is objective.

 

The use of specifically chosen mathematics and word comparison or word rearrangement questions to measure intelligence -

 

you truly see no difference between using questions like "A lawyer owns 4 pairs of pants, 5 dress shirts and 6 ties. How many days can the lawyer go without wearing the same combination of three items?" "ROYGBIV stands for: the size of atoms the seasons the colors of the rainbow types of trees" and "Are the words

Aghast

Unsurprised contradictory, similar or not related?" as metrics of intelligence? and something like timing a 40 yd dash or observing bench press reps?

 

 

I got nothin'.

 

3 hours ago, Lothar said:

The Wonderlic remains a tool that garners more notoriety than it deserves since it doesn't really show a correlation between score and success.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-a-multiple-choice-test-became-a-fixture-of-the-nfl-draft/

 

Interesting article.  I absolutely disagree with this: “What we’re measuring is not what you know — that’s what’s being measured on the ACT or the SAT,” said Charles Wonderlic, president and CEO of Wonderlic Inc. “This is really saying, ‘How quickly does your brain gather and analyze information?’”

 

The tests available online, that I have taken, are ABSOLUTELY about what you know, from "can you do arithmetic without a calculator accurately" to "do you know how to translate word problems into algebra and solve algebra problems quickly?" to "do you know and are able to use less common definitions of words?" to "do you know the names of different types of triangles and other geometric shapes?".  If the online tests reflect the actual Wonderlic administered to NFL players, No way is that thing a measure of how quickly your brain gathers and analyzes information.

Edited April 1, 2018 by Hapless Bills Fan

[GoBills808]

4 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Mathematics per se as in the answer to "if your dinner cost $19.53 and you pay $50.01, what is your change?" is objective.

 

The use of specifically chosen mathematics and word comparison or word rearrangement questions to measure intelligence -

 

you truly see no difference between using questions like "A lawyer owns 4 pairs of pants, 5 dress shirts and 6 ties. How many days can the lawyer go without wearing the same combination of three items?" "ROYGBIV stands for: the size of atoms the seasons the colors of the rainbow types of trees" and "Are the words

Aghast

Unsurprised contradictory, similar or not related?" as metrics of intelligence? and something like timing a 40 yd dash or observing bench press reps?

 

 

I got nothin'.

I see no difference. Furthermore, those examples are as objective metrics of intelligence as the 40 yard dash and bench press are objective measures of athleticism imo.

 

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

2 hours ago, Rochesterfan said:

I think that if everyone believes the NFL uses this as a measurement of intelligence - I think that is wrong.  I think they use it as a pressure gauge and a preparation monitor more now because so many rookies go through prep classes - it let’s you know if they are putting in the time.

 

A low score is still a flag for many of these guys, but not as much as years ago before everyone had prep access.

 

If the NFL is using the test as a preparation monitor, and prep access is now readily available, wouldn't a low score actually be more of a flag now-a-days?

3 minutes ago, GoBills808 said:

I see no difference. Furthermore, those examples are as objective metrics of intelligence as the 40 yard dash and bench press are objective measures of athleticism imo.

 

Then I got nothing to say.  It's amazing to me that someone could perceive a question such as whether "aghast" and "unsurprised" are synonyms, antonyms, or unrelated, as

1) an actual or reliable measure of someone's intelligence

2) objective in the same way a 40 yd dash time is

 

Good day to you!

Edited April 1, 2018 by Hapless Bills Fan

[GoBills808]

5 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

If the NFL is using the test as a preparation monitor, and prep access is now readily available, wouldn't a low score actually be more of a flag now-a-days?

 

Then I got nothing to say.  It's amazing to me that someone could perceive a question such as whether "aghast" and "unsurprised" are synonyms, antonyms, or unrelated, as

1) an actual or reliable measure of someone's intelligence

2) objective in the same way a 40 yd dash time is

 

Good day to you!

You'll note I never said your example was either an actual or reliable measure of someone's intelligence, only that it was as reliable a measurement of someone's intelligence as a 40 time or bench press would be a reliable measurement of someone's athleticism. Thus, objective.

 

How is understanding vocabulary and grammar 'subjective' to you? What's the difference between knowing the definition of 'aghast' and knowing how to calculate the circumference of a circle?

[Hapless Bills Fan]

3 hours ago, jmc12290 said:

Math is super fluid man.  6 times 5 times 4 only equals 120 in Hispanic neighborhoods.

 

This illustrates exactly the difference I was trying to point out to GoBills.

 

6 times 5 times 4 equals 120 in all neighborhoods.

 

Knowing that the way to solve a problem like "how many different combinations of 6 slacks 5 shirts and 4 ties can you wear?" is to multiply 6 x 5 x 4, depends upon whether you've been taught and remember combinatorial mathematics.  Treating that as measure of innate intelligence is sketchy, and claiming it's just as objective as timing a 40 yd dash or the actual mathematical problem, is just weird.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

Just now, GoBills808 said:

You'll note I never said your example was either an actual or reliable measure of someone's intelligence, only that it was as reliable a measurement of someone's intelligence as a 40 time or bench press would be a reliable measurement of someone's athleticism. Thus, objective.

 

How is understanding vocabulary and grammar 'subjective' to you? What's the difference between knowing the definition of 'aghast' and knowing how to calculate the circumference of a circle?

 

You started out with this statement: " I fail to see how mathematics and reading comprehension are less objective metrics than the 40 yard dash and bench press. "

There was nothing in there about the 40 yd dash and the bench press as measures of athleticism, but obviously for a certain type of athleticism they are correlated.  Leaving out the "measures of athleticism" bit, the point is that they are objectively measureable.

 

The difference between knowing how to calculate the circumference of a circle and answering a question comparing the meanings of "aghast" and "unsurprised", is that both words have several meanings, and there's a definite subjective component in how you interpret them.  For example, Merriam-Webster lists synonyms of "aghast" as "afraid, alarmed, fearful, frightened, horrified, horror-struck, hysterical (also hysteric), scared, scary, shocked, spooked, terrified, terrorized."  Except for possibly "shocked", one could arguably be all of those things and not particularly surprised.  So it's subjective, unlike the calculation of circumference which is straightforward and has one answer given a diameter and sig figures.

 

Then in the case of the Wonderlic, you have to take another step and claim that two questions assessing what you know are actually measuring your intelligence.

[BringBackOrton]

21 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

This illustrates exactly the difference I was trying to point out to GoBills.

 

6 times 5 times 4 equals 120 in all neighborhoods.

 

Knowing that the way to solve a problem like "how many different combinations of 6 slacks 5 shirts and 4 ties can you wear?" is to multiply 6 x 5 x 4, depends upon whether you've been taught and remember combinatorial mathematics.  Treating that as measure of innate intelligence is sketchy, and claiming it's just as objective as timing a 40 yd dash or the actual mathematical problem, is just weird.

Knowing the exact way to start, position your hips, drive your first step on the 40 yard dash properly to maxmizie your speed depends on how you've been taught. Your argument is so faulty.

 

This isn't higher level mathematics either. Understanding math at the 8th grade level shouldn't be hard for sophomores and juniors in college who actually care about school.

Edited April 1, 2018 by jmc12290

[Buffaloflash]

On 3/29/2018 at 10:55 PM, mileena said:

 

It's absolutely not biased against young people. It is biased racially though.

How So?

On 3/29/2018 at 11:16 PM, BadLandsMeanie said:

I can address that for you a bit if you like.

 

College professors and the like make tests like the Wonderlic.  The object being to show how smart you are. Right?

 

What do you suppose the odds are that the professors would end up with a test that shows them to be morons?

 

 It is zero. There is no chance of that happening at all. 

 

So the tests will automatically wind up being measures of things that bookish introverts know. Everybody who has some life experience knows there are different ways of being smart. We even have the word "book smart" for somebody who knows a lot of facts, but maybe seems incapable in other more practical life skills. 

 

 

 

And the Racial aspect?