Miles Jackson
But that's exactly what I think is going on: changing modes of life and
thought. In the midst of a huge historical trend in the direction of higher rates of participation in formal education and the diffusion of
scientific modes of thought, we have the strange claim that people are
more doltish than they were in the past. Do not trust the anecdotes of
teachers with long experience; they are prone to see past generations of students through rose-tinted glasses. When the work of college students (say) has been compared over decades, there has been no abysmal drop in the quality of student performance. In fact, in many academic areas, given what Flynn calls the diffusion of the "scientific mode" of thought, performance has dramatically improved
^^^^^ CB: With respect to IQ tests, couldn't it also be that the problem types, even specific questions, have gradually seeped into the common sense grapevine of the masses. There are also many test prep courses, books and materials available now that haven't always been available. Even "puzzle" books. The type of problem that IQ testers consider a test of "intelligence" is not as much of a secret as it was 80 years ago; and that type of test problem probably hasn't changed as much as the awareness of it has leaked out into general knowledge. Probably a lot of teachers use standardized style questions and tests in there regular curricula than did in the past. Standardized testing culture has merged into elementary and high school academic culture.
There's a diffusion of the standardized test mode of thought as well as the "scientific mode".