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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
A measure aimed at boosting female employment in the workforce may actually be making it worse, a major study has found.
Leaders of the Australian public service will today be told to "hit pause" on blind recruitment trials, which many believed would increase the number of women in senior positions. Blind recruitment means recruiters cannot tell the gender of candidates because those details are removed from applications. It is seen as an alternative to gender quotas and has also been embraced by Deloitte, Ernst & Young, Victoria Police and Westpac Bank.
In a bid to eliminate sexism, thousands of public servants have been told to pick recruits who have had all mention of their gender and ethnic background stripped from their CVs. The assumption behind the trial is that management will hire more women when they can only consider the professional merits of candidates. Their choices have been monitored by behavioural economists in the Prime Minister's department — colloquially known as "the nudge unit".
Professor Michael Hiscox, a Harvard academic who oversaw the trial, said he was shocked by the results and has urged caution. "We anticipated this would have a positive impact on diversity — making it more likely that female candidates and those from ethnic minorities are selected for the shortlist," he said. "We found the opposite, that de-identifying candidates reduced the likelihood of women being selected for the shortlist."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @01:50AM (2 children)
I too failed Calc 1 twice, passing on the third try. It wasn't because I couldn't do it -- I just didn't have the motivation to focus on it. But that's the thing, 90% of intelligence is likely motivation. At 18, I was more interested in getting wasted and laid. I sometimes wish I had spent a year between college working in a gas station and partying -- at least you come out of that without student loans and bad marks on your record.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @04:18AM
Essentially yes, but usually we don't refer to it as motivation. It's mostly a matter of persistence and being OK with the uncomfortable feeling of struggling. Calculus isn't trivial, but it is something that virtually anybody can get good at if they're willing to keep at it long enough.
Motivation is the thing that tends to drive persistence.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday August 11 2017, @03:31PM
You wouldn't believe the number of times I ended up retaking advanced math classes for my CS degree, either. I still maintain they were a large waste of time. And the SE guys had to take even more.
Allegedly our discrete math course, 50% of students failed their first time taking it. I assume only reason anybody took it at all was because it was required for Comp Sci (well, and the math majors, but they're obviously crazy to begin with ;)
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"