No O Effect?

This is junk science at its worse. If this is true, than there is no need for teachers. Just wave a picture of Barrack Obama in front of Black students before they take a test. No more studying, no aspiring for higher standards or hard work. This is worse than the people who claim you can lose all your excess weight and eat all you want with no work or exercise. Blacks can improve their lives when they are ready to work for what they want.

The Obama effect is about realizing that African-Americans are not hopeless and can succeed. The path to success is not about thinking of Obama right before a test, but of realizing that working hard like Obama will produce better results.

My personal hypothesis is that people who come to the United States of their own volition, like Obama's father, tend to be a better match to American culture whereas, the African-American slaves had no interest in leaving their culture. Placing random people in a culture is a recipe for failure. Native Americans, Aborigines and Maoris have not adapted to their predominate mainstream white man cultures.

Obama is a type II African-American. His mom was American and his father was African, whereas the vast majority of African -American students descend from a long line of relatives who were both African and American. These relatives are a true mix, they're not a perfect fit for an African culture or a white American culture. They fit in an African-American culture, which is a culture that would not be a fit for either of Obama's parents. Obama, himself, is international in nature, having both a rare ethnicity and a rare cultural upbringing. He doesn't fit snuggly in any one culture. It appears that he creates a culture around himself containing intellectual and insightful people.

Which "tests"are you talking about?????
If you are talking about the standardized tests given out each spring at inner city high schools, I challenge Sharon Begley or anyone else to try teaching in a low income inner city high school. Try giving the group of street-wise, know-it-all adolescents three compelling reasons that they should excel in a bunch of tests that have as much relevance to their day-to-day existence as a war between cockroaches on one of the moons of the Planet Uranus. For those who don't know. Students don't get the results of their test scores until the following year. By that time, they've forgotten what the test was about. (Given the transient population of many inner city schools, it is possible that students may NEVER get the results of their standardized tests.) Even if they get their scores, the results have no effect on their day-to-day lives. Standardized test scores count for zilch in terms of college admissions. (Even the SAT is not the be-all-and-end-all.) I've yet to hear of an employer who looks at standardized test scores to determine whether a student will or will not get a job. Do you get my gist????
As a retired teacher from an inner city school, I've had plenty of experience with "test" scores. Some assessment tests that i administered were "in-house"affairs. I could readily get the scores and pass them on to the students. I simply told my students that if they didn't pass the "test", they didn't pass my class. Needless to say, I got a very high pass rate. I can't say the same thing about "standardized tests" which incidentally do NOT even have a clearly defined passing score.
I might add that I did teach in a magnet school and I did teach honors and AP classes, so I could easily tell my students that they chose to be in my class. Other teachers did not have that luxury. That's the big reason charter schools succeed.
In terms of higher "test" scores in high school and middle schools, I've got a suggestions. If we are dealing with a "failing"school, why not put the tests on computers? Why not pattern the tests after popular video games? In other words turn the tests into a video game, where the student gets to keep score. You could then set up competitions and award prizes. The problem with school "testing" is really with the brain dead people who administer the tests.

There may be an effect, but wow is that sad if so. Obama and our congressional leaders, especially Pelosi and Frank, make me depressed for the future. Any party in office these days, so basically government in general. It is about politics, power and votes, not about the people. I don't understand how anyone wants to be dependent on government. That is all we are getting these days is intrusion on our daily lives.

The only 'Obama effect' is the most profound polarization of our country that has ever occurred.

People really need to get over this black/white male/female crap.

A prompt to improve these students' scores? If it were that easy, wouldn't people be using "prompts" to lose weight, make more money, perform better on the job? These students, like most of us, aren't Pavlov's dogs who respond to "prompts" that have NOTHING to do with the material on which they are being tested..

Oh, brother. It seems some 'journalists' cannot think of anything useful to write about, so they turn to the mundane. Of course, it just has to have something to do with Obama. It's as if they admire narcissism. No surprise.

This was a wasted article that only had the value of making those who are ignorant have a chance to tell how the minorities take everything from them and don't give back to society. It is just sad. BUT newsflash,Forty-seven percent of children under 5 are minorities, as are 43% of young people under age 20. So don't be upset in 10 -15 years when your children bring 1 of us hated minorities home or GOD forbid they marry 1of us have children, and your new grandchildren are those minorities you despise so much.

Believe I am wrong check out the Link to USA Today..
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2009-05-14-census_N.htm

Oh but that's a left newspaper can't believe them.

Whovever wrote this article is confused with herself.

Whovever whrote this article is confused with herself.

What a racist and disgusting approach! Tying to bring all sort of baseless arguments how white students are smarter than black students, someone has come up with Obama not being influencial enough to black people to psychologically motivate them on verbal test score effort or else.

What a racist and disgusting approach. Tying to bring all sort of baseless arguments how white students is smarter than black students, someone has come up with Obama not being influencial enough to black people to psychologically motivate on verbal test score effort or else.

It is only the uninformed that would attempt to deduce genuine intentions from this research article. The discerning would certainly question the advantages derivable from continuing to kick a dead horse. It seems apparent that the authors of the research article are among the swiftly diminishing set who still remain obstinate and are insistent on using subtle covers to sustain the dissemination of the now outdated and discredited crusade against young black generations. Does this race really deserve to be continually reminded in every conceivable disguise that they cannot compete at the same level with their white counterparts? Just imagine the contention that ???years of research on stereotype threat had shown that being reminded that you belong to a group that is stereotyped as being inferior at some task tends to make you do worse on that task ?????? Is the time not long past for black children and youths to be left alone to find their forte?

This stereotype has become unnecessarily overused and quite unwelcome to Americans as could be observed in contemporary developments. The sticklers to the old notion continue to fathom clever ways to keep it flickering. A large number are openly disassociating themselves from this over-flogged stereotype. The sticklers should follow the trend, allow this antiquated artificial creation to rest in peace and not continue to exploit it.

Some alternative hypotheses:

1) The majority of black students were already thinking about Obama who had just clinched the Democratic nomination, raising the average score of black students regardless of whether they were assigned to be prompted to think about him or not.
2) Aspiring medical students don't find lawyer/politicians particularly inspiring.
3) The study was too small to detect an impact, which is likely smaller than the impact of years of prior environment.