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The following appeared as part of a newspaper editorial.
“Two years ago Nova High School began to use interactive computer instruction in three academic subjects. The school dropout rate declined immediately, and last year’s graduates have reported some impressive achievements in college. In future budgets the school board should use a greater portion of the available funds to buy more computers, and all schools in the district should adopt interactive computer instruction throughout the curriculum.”
In this argument, the author concludes that school should buy more computers and adopt interactive computer instruction throughout the curriculum.In support of the conclusion,the author cites that the school dropout rate declined immediately after interactive computer instruction being introduced in Nova High school.This fact,coupled with the fact that the last year's graduates have reported some impressive achievements leads to the conclusion.However,this argument is unconvincing because it suffers from some critical flaws.
Firstly, the author's conclusion from the example of Nova High school's three academic subjects depends on the assumption that all school and all curriculum are the same ,and they could easily be adapted for distance learning program. The author unfairly assumes that all schools have the budget on effort to enhance its facilities like Nova High school does and all curriculum rife with data and theory. Yet, the author offers no evidence to substantiate this assumption.The author must show that all the curriculum including the ones that need actual operation,experiments for example,can be adapted for this instruction.Otherwise,the author cannot confidently draw any general conclusions about the necessity for schools to adopt interactive computer instruction throughout the curriculum.
Furthermore,the example of the Nova High school's three academic subjects cited is insufficient to warrant their truth because there is no reason to believe that the three subjects polled constitute a sufficiently large sample,and that the sample is fully representative,or the author cannot confidently draw general conclusion.
What is the most important is that the only evidence the author can offer to support the claim that the decrease of dropout and the achievements of last year’s graduates’ are owe to the introduce of the instruction is that both the decrease and achievements happened after the adoption of the instruction.While admittedly the adoption of the interactive computer instruction may be one factor of the decrease of the dropout and the increase of achievement,other factors that could result in the effect should also be considered and eliminate.For example, the improvement of the teachers' skills or of the quality of the students the school enrolled may also lead to the decrease of the dropout and the increase of the achievement.What's more,the evidence is insufficient to establish the claim in question because a mere chronological relationship in only one of the indicators of a causal relation and, therefore,does not necessarily prove a causal relationship. The author's failure to investigate or even consider other possible explanations for the example renders the conclusion based upon it highly suspect.
In summary,the author fails to validate the conclusion that school should buy more computers and adopt interactive computer instruction throughout the curriculum.To make it logically acceptable,the author should demonstrate that no other factors may contribute to the effect and that the data is convincing because it comes from a sufficiently large sample.Moreover,I would suspend my judgment about the credibility of the recommendation until the arguer can provide concrete evidence that all the school are affordable for the interactive computer instruction. |
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发表于 2012-7-26 15:59:40
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