@grimalkina@mastodon.social
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grimalkina

@grimalkina@mastodon.social

Social & Evidence Scientist. Defender of the mismeasured. 🦄🏳️‍🌈 she/they

I do #psychology and #measurement theory and #research with #software teams on how developers thrive. My focus areas include how people form beliefs about #learning and build strategies for #resilience #productivity & #motivation. Quant Psych PhD (but with a love for qual) and VP of Getting Tech to Do Real Open Science.

Founder of the Developer Success Lab ❤️
Neighborhood Cool Science Aunt

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grimalkina, to random
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This kind of thing has been around the block for a bit -- the reality in my opinion is that "programming ability" is simply not something we've defined and possibly not a single thing. The many decades of interest in predicting programming ability have sometimes succeeded at pushing against our stereotypes that it is math associated (as this work), but "math ability" is ALSO a fraught measure. It's important to bring a lot of context to the prediction of ability...

https://fosstodon.org/@yabellini/112470616882303876

grimalkina,
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How do we think about aptitude, ability, performance and potential -- these are massive and complex arguments even in the areas of psychology where we have done the most work and have the strongest evidence to draw on. I've been reading a lot about "predicting programming aptitude" and this work here is better than a lot of what I've been reading, but in the entire area I see a lot of failure to integrate with modern education research.

grimalkina,
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Gotta read this whole thing to have an informed opinion but "EEG to large claim about extremely complex real world implication about aptitude" 🧐 not usually a fan (and I'm speaking as someone whose PhD was in an EEG lab)

grimalkina,
@grimalkina@mastodon.social avatar

We recruit any huge number of capacities that we have available to us in order to succeed at solving real world problems and do our complex knowledge work. Looking for the "real strongest predictor" can be a very dangerous game even when it might line up with something we want to believe. Language feels more inclusive vs math ability! But is it? Take it too far and what are we saying about the enormous % of people in the world with language disabilities?

grimalkina,
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So I have no doubt there are interesting things to surface using the many technologies available to us in measurement. But folks in tech are generally not aware, and should be more aware, of the enormous critiques leveled against biological reductionism in how we talk about aptitude and the many ways modern neuroscience and cognitive science both give us strong signals against this. I've done a few threads on how cog sci "basics" like working memory are questioned or measure differently

grimalkina,
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Individual differences research cannot be divorced from its very long and very ugly history of exclusionary, discriminatory arguments. We need to understand that history when we seek to extend research on "human ability" into areas that have such enormous economic and social implications for people. Against this isn't really against this one paper but a caution to not overindex on this kind of approach. Like I said..."programming ability" is not necessarily one thing in the real world.

grimalkina,
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@aetataureate yaaah it's a little bit "language part of brain is used when brain is reading text characters, wow" ok I get that their claim is about the % predicted in learning outcomes but I do need to read the stats and consult with my neuroscientist in house to understand what the counterfactual is and if this is an overbroad claim which I'm basically sure it is because ability research of this sort always is

grimalkina,
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This is like the worst stuff EVER to try to scicomm about (simply saying "intelligence" on social media as a queer scientist is to get in the sights of so many scary groups of racist "IQ" Bell Curve types) but for a long long time in grad school I was super interested in how we model and understand human potential and aptitude and lord when I started reading the "programming ability" research I was like, oh god. Oh no.

grimalkina,
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@sue yes totally it's still coming from a meritocracy perspective to say "well maybe there are some smart ones we missed" vs "maybe what we think of as smart is actually very much a function of the environment and opportunity and we should be building for learning and development"

rwg, to Ethics
@rwg@aoir.social avatar

I have a teaching question for @commodon / folks.

Would it be too frustrating to ask undergrads to find a particular news story that I know for a fact does not exist? The reason I ask is because there is a professional field that references this non-existent story because a respected figure in the field claims to have caused it to be.

After the student struggle to find the story, the discussion would be about ethics and research.

I can provide specific details if needed

grimalkina,
@grimalkina@mastodon.social avatar

@rwg @commodon from a learning sciences pov I would advise thinking very carefully about whether you would be violating students' trust and whether this is an inclusive experience. Even with repair afterwards, so many students particularly underserved students experience a lot of shame and low trust in classrooms. I think being actively misled by an instructor would have been something I would've been really angry about as a student even when I got the overall point.

grimalkina,
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@rwg @commodon although this particular example is fascinating, so I can imagine the value! Just sharing a pov for your consideration.

sue, to random
@sue@glasgow.social avatar

Folk using "algorithms" to refer to everything that's wrong with the web the way folk believed "miasma" caused the spread of disease pre sanitation

grimalkina,
@grimalkina@mastodon.social avatar

@sue THIS. But omg the level of outrage I get when I say there are social "cultures" here and obvious patterns of behavior, some of which might be negative

grimalkina,
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@sue like either believe human behavior matters at scale or don't... it's oddly just as detached from truly recognizing the importance of human behavior to act like it's going to be naturally and immediately positive

grimalkina,
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@doomfluffy @sue I think that's a fair point and the shift of agency is for sure why I'm here and a huge thing that I value. Yet it is almost inevitable that when we rely on human effort and also some tech skills in this way we have a likelihood of this being something that some of us can do and not others in very systematic ways. So examining and overcoming this feels very key to me

grimalkina,
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@sue and like in a simple way too I guess I'm like hey let's develop a shared sociology of this general experience here that actually isn't just about defining it in opposition to something else? Like good and bad so we can work our way towards good...

grimalkina, to random
@grimalkina@mastodon.social avatar

Being able to read science papers that explain some of my experience but knowing this science has not yet made its way into practice or been integrated into my healthcare is excruciating.

So in that way I understand the visceral reaction that people have sometimes to our social science in tech. It is really painful folks.

I hope we can all move forward with empathy and demand BOTH the science and the practice that we deserve. In so many parts of the world we need this.

grimalkina,
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@VulcanTourist thank you for sharing. I can't imagine how difficult this is and as a complex patient myself I can only extend my deepest wishes for support and care to you and your wife. She deserves so much more.

grimalkina, to random
@grimalkina@mastodon.social avatar

Last night I was sitting on the couch having major lung issues wrapped in a blanket but enjoying ultra high def absolutely wild national geographic footage of mountains. I know there is so much that's so garbage fire in this world, but I am always so grateful for the creative humans who go out and do things like this and the entire creative process that brings this beautiful stuff to my living room when I feel bad. For most of history ill people have not had anything like this.

grimalkina, to random
@grimalkina@mastodon.social avatar

For me as a social scientist, being in tech is a constant experience of being really surprised at what so many people seem wildly certain about (organizing teams, contextless conversations about productivity that treat all individuals as interchangeable) and what people seem so wildly uncertain about (the possibility that there are often systematic patterns in human behavior we can learn from, the effect size of culture)

grimalkina,
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like, human psychology has had a MUCH longer timeframe to iterate and innovate on than these abstract little modern day organizational structures which are, at their core, far less free to vary so I find the idea of devoting my life to comparing between them IMMENSELY boring tbh

grimalkina,
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I'm not saying they're meaningless they're not -- they're absolutely important features of the environment -- I just can't imagine reifying them over PEOPLE

grimalkina,
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@fuzzychef yeah for sure

grimalkina,
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@fuzzychef but I think the mental models bleed over a lot to people for whom it is genuine intellectual effort

grimalkina,
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@greg that sounds really hard 😔

grimalkina,
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@mavu ah yes the classic brilliance belief strategy

Hierarchies of knowledge are very interesting. I am well familiar with the biases against social science as a label but then again -- it is also the topics that most people want to talk about the most. So in a good faith consideration of what people are genuinely thinking about as they genuinely try to solve human problems, I think it's also a problem even for those folks

grimalkina,
@grimalkina@mastodon.social avatar

@andrewharvey @greg work faster friend!!! (I'm jk)

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