{"id":439,"date":"2019-04-04T17:44:22","date_gmt":"2019-04-04T17:44:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/lee-jussim\/?page_id=439"},"modified":"2019-04-04T18:36:09","modified_gmt":"2019-04-04T18:36:09","slug":"grandma","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/lee-jussim\/grandma\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

A Preliminary Report on an Intervention Designed\u00a0<\/b>to Reduce Grandmother Death Resulting From\u00a0<\/b>College Exams<\/b><\/p>\n

Lee Jussim<\/b><\/p>\n

April, 2002<\/b><\/p>\n

Background<\/b><\/p>\n

Adams (1990) was the first to document the crisis in grandmother deaths resulting from\u00a0<\/span>college exams. \u00a0He discovered that the rate of grandmother mortality rose 10-20\u00a0<\/span>times just prior to the period of exams, when compared to the ambient mortality\u00a0<\/span>rate at other times.\u00a0<\/span>Adams (1990) speculated that the most likely cause of death was inordinate\u00a0<\/span>grandmotherly stress at the thought of her grandchild taking a difficult exam.\u00a0<\/span>This interpretation was further strengthened by findings that the worse students\u00a0<\/span>had been performing in the class, the greater the likelihood of at least one\u00a0<\/span>grandmother dying prior to an exam. \u00a0Grandmothers probably experience\u00a0<\/span>particularly acute stress at the thought of their grandchildren taking a test\u00a0<\/span>in which they are unlikely to do well.\u00a0<\/span>He also proposed three possible solutions:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Stop giving exams. \u00a0Adams concluded that this would\u00a0<\/span>prevent colleges from evaluating the competence of people\u00a0<\/span>interested in becoming doctors, lawyers, engineers, MBAs,\u00a0<\/span>teachers, etc. \u00a0Therefore, colleges would no longer be able to\u00a0<\/span>train these and many other professionals. \u00a0As a result,\u00a0<\/span>the economy would come to a grinding halt. \u00a0This did not\u00a0<\/span>seem to be a good idea.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
      \n
    1. Only admit orphans to college. \u00a0This would be a good idea except\u00a0<\/span>for the paucity of orphans.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
        \n
      1. Have students never inform their families that they are in college.\u00a0<\/span>This would work if feasible. \u00a0Students could tell their families\u00a0<\/span>they are going off to work (if they live at home), or join the\u00a0<\/span>armed forces or a religious cult (if they live on campus). \u00a0The lack of income,\u00a0<\/span>however, might eventually become noticeable in the first case.\u00a0<\/span>Joining the armed forces or a religious cult would seem to have\u00a0<\/span>more potential to work as an enduring deception. \u00a0However,\u00a0<\/span>both options would likely stress grandmothers at least as much as\u00a0<\/span>college exams, so that it is not clear that either would lead to much\u00a0<\/span>net reduction in premature grandmother mortality.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Click here to see Adams (1990) original research report.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

        Because all three of these interventions seem unsatisfactory, our\u00a0<\/span>crack research team designed something altogether different and\u00a0<\/span>workable, and which has none of the flaws of Adams’ three\u00a0<\/span>proposals.<\/span><\/p>\n

        The Intervention<\/b><\/p>\n

        Over the last several years, we have instituted the following intervention,\u00a0<\/span>designed to reduce the frequency of premature grandmother mortality.\u00a0<\/span>Students are informed that, should they miss a major multiple choice\u00a0<\/span>exam, they will have an opportunity to take the brutal essay makeup.\u00a0<\/span>The means on this test typically range from F-D, whereas the\u00a0<\/span>means on multiple choice test range from about C+ to B.<\/span><\/p>\n

        Results<\/b><\/p>\n

        Grandmother mortality rates with no intervention. <\/b>The ambient\u00a0<\/span>rate of grandmother death at any time during a semester,\u00a0<\/span>other than the week before a major exam, is about 1\/2000 students.\u00a0<\/span>The rate of grandmother death during the week leading up to\u00a0<\/span>a major exam skyrockets to about 1\/200. \u00a0(This means\u00a0<\/span>that, summing over the three weeks leading up to the three major\u00a0<\/span>tests in my classes, approximately 1 of every 200 grandmothers dies).<\/span><\/p>\n

        Results from preliminary trials. \u00a0<\/b>\u00a0Preliminary trials simply required\u00a0<\/span>students who missed the main exam to take an essay makeup. \u00a0There\u00a0<\/span>was no warning about its brutality — indeed, when we first instituted\u00a0<\/span>this intervention, we anticipated that the grades on the essay\u00a0<\/span>would be slightly, but not dramatically, lower than those of the main exam.\u00a0<\/span>Although this preliminary intervention did not reduce grandmother mortality at all,\u00a0<\/span>it did reveal that most students who took the essay makeup performed\u00a0<\/span>extremely poorly. \u00a0Although speculations on the source of such difficulties\u00a0<\/span>are beyond the scope of this paper, these preliminary trials did inspire:<\/span><\/p>\n

        1) the fearful name of “brutal essay makeup” and<\/span><\/p>\n

        2) the main intervention, which simply involved telling students\u00a0<\/span>that if they miss the main exam, regardless of the reason, they\u00a0<\/span>will have the opportunity to take the brutal essay makeup.<\/span><\/p>\n

        Main intervention results. \u00a0<\/b>The main intervention — simply\u00a0<\/span>informing students that, if they miss the main exam they could<\/span>take the brutal essay makeup — dramatically reduced the\u00a0<\/span>grandmother mortality rate. \u00a0Even during the week prior\u00a0<\/span>to an exam, grandmother mortality was a mere 1\/1000, which although\u00a0<\/span>still higher than the ambient 1\/2000 rate of grandmotherly\u00a0<\/span>death without an exam, is much lower than the 1\/200 rate\u00a0<\/span>typically found for most college classes around exam time.\u00a0<\/span>In laymen’s terms, we have saved the lives of 4 out of every 5\u00a0<\/span>grandmothers who would typically die during the week leading\u00a0<\/span>up to a major exam.<\/span><\/p>\n

        Discussion<\/b><\/p>\n

        It is clear that we have developed a highly, though not completely, successful\u00a0<\/span>intervention for reducing grandmothers’ risk of death around student test-taking.\u00a0<\/span>Just why this intervention works, however, is not clear. \u00a0One possibility is that\u00a0<\/span>the thought of the brutal essay make up is so horrible that the main test, by contrast,\u00a0<\/span>seems less threatening, thereby reducing grandmotherly stress.\u00a0<\/span>Another possibility stems from students’ increased motivation\u00a0<\/span>to stay healthy and attend class the day of the test (rather\u00a0<\/span>than take the brutal essay makeup). \u00a0Perhaps they begin working out at every\u00a0<\/span>opportunity, including with their grandmothers. Because of their increased\u00a0<\/span>physical fitness, the grandmothers become less susceptible to the stressful\u00a0<\/span>effects of their grandchildren’s exams.\u00a0<\/span>One thing is clear, though — we know what does not work.\u00a0<\/span>Simply having the brutal essay makeup is not enough — indeed,\u00a0<\/span>this intervention was completely ineffective at reducing\u00a0<\/span>grandmotherly death. \u00a0It was only when students\u00a0<\/span>were informed well in advance about the the brutal essay\u00a0<\/span>makeup that the dramatic reduction in grandmother\u00a0<\/span>mortality was obtained. \u00a0Thus it is extremely important to the success of\u00a0<\/span>the intervention that students be informed about the difficulty of\u00a0<\/span>the brutal essay makeup well before the first multiple choice exam.\u00a0<\/span>The full and complete reasons why this intervention has been\u00a0<\/span>so successful may never be known. Regardless, it has been\u00a0<\/span>extremely gratifying to provide such a large contribution to the public\u00a0<\/span>health of grandmothers with such a simple intervention.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        A Preliminary Report on an Intervention Designed\u00a0to Reduce Grandmother Death Resulting From\u00a0College Exams Lee Jussim April, 2002 Background Adams (1990) was the first to document the crisis in grandmother deaths … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":232,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-439","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n- Lee Jussim<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/lee-jussim\/grandma\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"- Lee Jussim\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A Preliminary Report on an 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