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edmundcb.bsky.social
Agent-Based Modeller and sociologist/social scientist, research in Social Networks, Decision Making, social evolution, opinion change, incompetence, participant research in secondhand markets, loves weird books and music. Unfollows marketers.
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Has anyone ever tried to measure the ability of students to rewrite a text in the light of feedback? Is this an ability we assume students have when perhaps some of them at least do not.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Worryingly common form of argument. Moe: You just hit me over the head with a turquoise baseball bat. Doe: There's no way you could call that turquoise.

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Is there a free AI that can't spell? Getting some truly extraordinary errors in my assignments to mark.

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

It's extraordinary how much scaffolding goes into all but the most basic communication. PERSON A: Question 1? Question 2? Question 3? PERSON B: That's fine. PERSON A: Huh? (Questions are such that this can't be a very terse "union yes".)

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

Rational Choice Theory of Bluffing: If bluffing is possible, bluffing will occur.

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

Would it infringe journalistic liberty to stop giving Trump live air time? By all means report actions he takes or the gist of what he says but when he claims Zelensky is being obstructive in refusing to cede territory illegally taken by Putin, it ceases to be "news" and connives at misinformation.

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

Particularly with outlets whose business model is to offer limited choice, punish stock outs by not buying an alternative item. It is ludicrous to have a handful of items and _still_ not be able to keep stock.

submitted 27 days ago • 0 comments

Watching the US and wondering if it is time we criminalised negligent stupidity. Why should kids die of preventable diseases because POTUS has the power to ignore evidence? Why should anyone have that power?

submitted 36 days ago • 0 comments

Everything in the academy appears to be under researched. What is the correct amount of research on traffic wardens? Just because nonsense is time honoured and widespread it isn't any less nonsensical.

submitted 37 days ago • 0 comments

How long is it, do you think, since you had a specific branch at your bank? Yet how many forms still ask for this postal address? It turns out they actually shut "my" branch of a bank, I am pretty sure without telling me, but it has never made the slightest difference as far as I can tell.

submitted 38 days ago • 0 comments

I wonder what percentage of students now can't hit a deadline unless it is backed by a mark penalty?

submitted 39 days ago • 0 comments

More puzzling micro-interaction with students. Why are they so reluctant to build alphabetical reference lists as they go? Anyone else see this? Is it just poor practice or does it somehow protect them from giving something away?

submitted 40 days ago • 0 comments

If the only real incentive to do HE admin jobs are vague promises of promotion then you better remember not to freeze the promotion process ...

submitted 41 days ago • 0 comments

Competition. Rarest official road sign on UK roads. On the very busy dual carriageway between Chichester and Worthing (Arundel Road): "No racing of horse drawn vehicles."

submitted 43 days ago • 0 comments

Does it make sense to ask social scientifically why some debates turn much nastier than others? Do all debates start reasonable and some "toxify" or are some toxic from the outset? Which ones and why?

submitted 45 days ago • 0 comments

I hope that there are people having a good hard look at the 25th Amendment and how one might interpret "the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office": www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

submitted 47 days ago • 1 comment

They _really_ knew how to do spoilers in the 1660s: “Youths behaviour, or, Decency in conversation amongst men: composed in French by grave persons, for the use and benefit of their youth; now newly turned into English”. (Francis Hawkins.)

submitted 48 days ago • 1 comment

Unobtrusive evidence for "social media democratisation?" Students seem to think that asking their friends is equivalent to asking a member of academic staff.

submitted 48 days ago • 0 comments

Does anybody know a book called something like "Why didn't they see it coming?" About resistance to seeing that the world has fundamentally changed (i. e. Jews under Hitler.) I have googled every variant of this title concept without success. Did I dream it?

submitted 50 days ago • 1 comment

People initially imagined the web as a hyper-informed virtual agora. Now it is an echo chamber breeding lunacy. Digital music can be reproduced endlessly without loss _but_ IPR remains. Will the net result be universally availability or huge gaps in the musical record: www.bbc.co.uk/news/technol...

submitted 51 days ago • 0 comments

Looking at my last two posts, it is a betrayal for academics to use their brains and training just to develop B. S. with more effective opacity than the "person in the street" could manage.

submitted 52 days ago • 0 comments

Another fudge is "student support". No decent academic opposes supporting students appropriately but the key issue is where the line is between support (answering questions) and dumbing down student expectations because they ask you to (reading them the guidance so they don't have to bother).

submitted 53 days ago • 0 comments

What is "the student experience?" Does it include failing an assignment because you didn't do enough work? It sounds like it means how many pizza toppings are available at the campus cafe. Nobody wants anyone to have a needlessly _bad_ experience but it may nonetheless be educational.

submitted 53 days ago • 0 comments

Getting of Wisdom: “Westernization came in two waves. It began, appropriately, with the construction of eighty-three public lavatories, the first in Japanese history, in Yokohama.” (Warner and Warner, 1974. The Tide at Sunrise: A History of the Russo-Japanese War, London: PBS Book Club, p. 24.)

submitted 60 days ago • 0 comments

Spot the difference: "Are you passionate about improving the research of the unit?" "Are you passionate about improving the research strategy of the unit?"

submitted 68 days ago • 0 comments

It is now transparent how schooling by numbers unfits students for HE. Even when you tell them that you aren't marking them for hitting subsection word counts (which are distorting because one answer may need more in one area and another in another) they disbelieve you or see it as some sort of con.

submitted 68 days ago • 0 comments

Reality check: Who was just humiliated in the White House? Think carefully before you answer.

submitted 71 days ago • 0 comments

If you neglect to tell me what is on your mind, you forfeit the right to complain if I misinterpret you.

submitted 76 days ago • 0 comments

Is trying to decide whether Trump is a fascist (or some other "ist") pure displacement activity? When an elephant is trampling your home do you really discuss whether it is Indian or African?

submitted 81 days ago • 1 comment

Don't know why I call it Sledging but it seems right. A student reveals literally nothing about what they know/understand saying they are "confused". Are they hoping you will give them a 10 minute substitute for a 20 hour lecture course? If so, how has such a misguided hope ever arisen?

submitted 83 days ago • 0 comments

I'm sure some of you know the Wimmer and Perner experiment but does anyone know if there is scale that measures higher order reasoning? How much of the problem with society is that participants just don't "get" it? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally%E...

submitted 85 days ago • 0 comments

Don't force reviewers (especially reviewers you have called for specialist methods skills like #abm) declare three massive subfields of your journal topic when setting up their reviewer accounts or you are just creating a stream of declines/non responses till infinity.

submitted 89 days ago • 0 comments

Amendment to the Constitution: Since Trump clearly wants to be King, Congress can move to appoint him a Court Jester who will be allowed to lampoon him mercilessly and tell him he is being a fool entirely immune to any reprisal.

submitted 90 days ago • 0 comments

#swingingsoc (political movements): www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4Dj...

submitted 91 days ago • 0 comments

Academic heuristics: No bootstrapping difficulties. If the data are missing nothing you can do will get it for you. Things like imputation have _very_ narrow technical capacity for value added and it is _not_ to "fill in" missing data.

submitted 92 days ago • 0 comments

Trump: A bulls****er in a china shop.

submitted 92 days ago • 0 comments

A huge part of power is just not responding. Watching Kemi B dodging anything definite made me think we should have an AI feed analyser sounding a buzzer/updating a ticker on screen every time a politician dodges a question ... rather than make it the job of a journalist who won't get invited back.

submitted 94 days ago • 1 comment

Surreal. Students discuss articles you already covered in teaching (presumably an effort minimisation strategy) but fail to use the points you made. This combo actually makes saying something sensible _harder_ than analysing something I didn't already talk about from scratch. Wish I could mind read.

submitted 95 days ago • 0 comments

Self destroying phrases: If you have to say "your voice matters", it probably doesn't. See also "your call is important to us" and "the government is committed to x".

submitted 96 days ago • 0 comments

Today is Retraction Day, when we observe the anniversary of the retraction (Feb. 2, 2010) of the fraudulent paper that purported to show a link between vaccines and autism. 🧪#medsky

submitted 98 days ago • 47 comments

With some clearly defined exceptions, how do qualitative researchers manage to present themselves as an oppressed minority when it is always UG statistics teaching that is hardest to cover. Surely the token quant can't be oppressing _all_ of you ...

submitted 97 days ago • 1 comment

WTAF? journalistsresource.org/home/researc...

submitted 99 days ago • 0 comments

Really struck by how some #abm papers are undermined by lack of research design (a set of relevant procedures to answer a clearly stated question): A gram of "why" is often worth a kilogram of "what".

submitted 99 days ago • 0 comments