Originally Posted by chipcom
I think the your use of "pass the standard driving examination" led me down the wrong path of concern. Indeed, ILTB's assertions are more troubling. Quite frankly, comparing people of who don't even know they are taking a test to those who have been schooled on the very subjects the test covers and know they are taking a test, can only provide results that are dubious at best, just as my conclusion concerning my civil service exam were.
Your comparison is not based on this particular situation. I agree entirely that comparing the German language test results of a random sample of the American population against those who had taken classes in German would be entirely inappropriate. All that it might show would be how much German had been learned in the German class.
However, we are here comparing performances on an activity with critical safety concerns. The electrician is not more likely to turn off the power of a high-voltage line before working on it if he knows he is being observed. If he is a competent electrician, he will turn off the power whether or not he is being observed. I think that we can conclude that any person who undertakes to work on a high voltage line without taking the proper precautions does not possess the skills required for an electrician.
In the same way, we can say with confidence that any cyclist riding in traffic who moves laterally without first looking behind does not possess the skills that should be required for drivers of bicycles. And I observed so many of these persons!
The complaint that tests all too often degrade teaching into teaching to the test, as is now common in educational circles, might apply. Suppose that my test for making a left turn required that the cyclist pedal backwards for two revolutions, and the students knew it. Certainly, they would pedal backwards just before turning left, and nobody else in the world would do it. However, I have described and explained my standards as being those that are necessary for safe traffic cycling. As long as that is correct, then whether or not a cyclist is being observed should make no difference in determining whether he is using the proper skill, and there is little chance that he has the skill but is not using it, because part of the skill is knowing that correct performance makes for safe operation and failing to operate properly leads to otherwise avoidable dangers.