THE PARKYN REPORT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 41, Issue 1049, 2 October 1959, Page 11

THE PARKYN REPORT

Sir,--I have been most interested in the discussion of the Parkyn report, and especially in Professor Mackie’s comments. However, I cannot see that Mr Parkyn’s main thesis-that no appreciable alleviation of the failure rate at University would result from a raising of the entrance standard-necessarily follows from the evidence he _ has adduced. It has been assumed that a raising of the entrance standard would operate merely to exclude from University students who at present pass U.E. by a small margin. This is by no means the case. (1) Many students aim at a minimum standard. Some of those who just manage to pass now would still pass if a higher standard was demanded, (2) The failure of a student in U.E. in any year is not to be equated with his exclusion from University. He may well have another attempt. (3) It is very likely that the raising of the U.E, standard would provide encouragement for even the better students to work harder. This effect cannot be discounted, even by those who are accustomed to belittle the value of a fear of failure. It may well be that the high correlation between success in the University Scholarship examination and success at University is to be explained in terms of the uniformly high motivation of candidates who sit this exam. " Thus I do not see that any very definite conclusions can be drawn from Mr Parkyn’s statistical work.

J. H.

MAINDONALD

(Auckland).