Thoughts on HS Writers

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BennyTheJett
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Thoughts on HS Writers

Post by BennyTheJett »

Ok so......

Yes, I'm a high school writer that has written for tournaments and such, but I want to know what the alumni think about high school kids writing for tournaments. I'd also like to know if you're against it, if you'd be willing to cowrite with high school kids to introduce them to test writing to better train the next generation of alums.
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Re: Thoughts on HS Writers

Post by ZachMUHS »

I think the main goal is to get qualified people to write the test and sometimes high school writers and ESs are the best option. The main concern for high school writers can be because of integrity issues and worries of a highschooler doing a bad job.

I still think high school writers are a good source of well written tests and alumni should be open to partnering because it could be a lot of fun.
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Re: Thoughts on HS Writers

Post by sciolyperson1 »

This really depends on the tournament. For some competitions, they just need a writer, and are willing to take in anybody. Typically, division B competitions and small-scale online div C ones allow non-alumni to write or supervise.

With the influx of online division C tournaments, other high schoolers are able to help with these competitions. Many competitions take in volunteer graders to grade tests, a feasible option considering the amount of teams that participate. However, even with high school event supervisors, I've almost never seen a bad test coming from them (Yosemite, SOLVI, etc.) as they typically hold themselves to higher standards as long as they're chosen right. For all div C events, there are div C competitors qualified to write for high levels of competition - whether it be that they participate in international olympiads, or have placed at nationals themselves - and I don't believe most alumni with less experience can produce a test better than a competitive, experienced high schooler.

TLDR: typically B writes for C and D writes for C, but I don't see an issue with C writing for C.
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Re: Thoughts on HS Writers

Post by pepperonipi »

The end goal of finding a test writer is to get a tournament a quality test.

I think the question is less about high schoolers vs. alumni as much as it is non-experienced vs. experienced. If you take a senior who just joined Science Olympiad this year vs. a senior who has won medals at MIT, Princeton, SOUP, etc. for 5 years, they are likely going to write different levels of test quality given the same amount of time despite being in the same age range. I've seen some tests written by current high schoolers that are much better than what a random 40-year-old volunteer wrote to help out a tournament.

Also though, experience doesn't just have to come from competing in Science Olympiad. A professional ornithologist might still write a better test than a sophomore who has competed at moderate-level invitationals, because of the ornithologist's extensive experience in the subject. However, this can also flip. Experienced college professors can sometimes go too in-depth in their subject on a test or just write about a general subject rather than what is laid out in the rules.

So overall, sure, high schoolers should totally be able to write for invitationals (especially if they have a lot of experience!)! I think just restricting test writers to alumni can limit the amount of possibly good tests you could get at invitational. Alumni can totally write amazing tests, but just as much as high schoolers can. And getting these two groups to work together can lead to amazing outcomes. :)
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Re: Thoughts on HS Writers

Post by SilverBreeze »

BennyTheJett wrote: January 13th, 2021, 7:23 am but I want to know what the alumni think about high school kids writing for tournaments. I'd also like to know if you're against it, if you'd be willing to cowrite with high school kids to introduce them to test writing to better train the next generation of alums.
I'm not an alumnus of course (actually everyone who has posted here has been high school haha), but I haven't seen it frowned upon within the alumni community in my experience. I think it helps a lot when the alumni involved know the high schooler, whether personally, by reputation, or by word of mouth.

To any skeptical alumnus reading this, I can personally vouch for the high-quality tests high schoolers are capable of producing. As with any age group of test writers, quality varies from writer to writer. If you've had a case of a high schooler writing a low-quality test or embarrassing the tournament with their conduct, it could be a one-off case, but probably just means a slightly tighter screening process is needed.

I will note that competitive achievement is pretty often a good prerequisite to ensure the high schooler knows enough to write a good test (watch out for competent students in teams that can't go to high-level competitions, though!). However, an impressive medal rack or list of non-SciOly credentials doesn't always translate to test writing ability - some of it can be bad questions from lack of experience, which fixes itself over time, but many times students may lack the maturity or responsibility to handle writing/ESing.

Try to screen even people who have written for several tournaments - some "experienced" writers have repeatedly done things like reuse their own tests, turning in tests very late, quitting soon before the competition, etc. (this applies not just to high school writers)

Then we run into an issue - taking on unexperienced high school writers is a gamble, but not taking them on makes test-writing opportunities hard for them to come by. I think it'd be interesting if high schoolers wrote a test before applying/signing up for invitationals, then showed the invitational the test. If the writer gets rejected, they can revise and/or resubmit to a different tournament. (of course the test would have to match the difficulty level of the tournament so that limits options a little) If all else fails at least the test can be published on the test exchange here, where people can practice with it. There might be concerns with leaks, though, if the writer asks a peer to review it before signing up for invitationals but that peer ends up competing (normally you could ask someone you know is not going to the invite).

Intentional test leaks aren't a huge issue if you know the high schooler writing has a good reputation, but I don't think it would be/has been a widespread issue.

If you're a high schooler who wants to write tests, contact tournaments, ask around! Don't feel discouraged if you get rejected a few times. Write for smaller/easier tournaments first, help out as a grader, etc. High schoolers writing for B is much more common than for C. I think it's a great way to be able to help out early on and get experience. Don't write just for volunteer hours or clout - those writers tend to produce lower-quality tests that give a worse experience for students. On the other hand, if you genuinely volunteer because you enjoy it, don't feel afraid to ask for volunteer hours! It's usually clear whether you're doing it for the hours or the sake of it, and I don't think most tournaments have found the latter case annoying.
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Re: Thoughts on HS Writers

Post by Adi1008 »

It's been a couple of months since the last post in this thread, but I'd like to chime in with an opinion that comes from a different perspective. For some context, I wrote a number of tests as both a middle school and high school student for a couple of different competitions (e.g., Regional tournaments in Texas, Cyfalls, and the Seven Lakes Invitational, to name a few). I've been involved in organizing the UT Invitational and UT Regional since the start of the 2018-2019 competition season, and for the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 seasons, I was directly in charge of recruiting and selecting event supervisors for our competitions as the Tournament Director. Now, I'm in an advisory position within the organization, so I feel like I can speak a little more freely about my experiences and rationale for only allowing alumni to ES at the UT tournaments.

First, as ZachMUHS mentioned, there are some concerns with integrity. Here, even if you (the Tournament Director) trust this high schooler completely, other teams might not. You open yourself up to attacks from coaches and parents from other schools, whether unfounded or not. The coaches and parents I've talked to as Tournament Director seem to feel more comfortable that our ESs are all alumni that aren't affiliated with any teams because they feel like it prevents conflicts of interest or advantages to any teams, whether intentional or not. For tournaments that aren't desperate for event supervisors, it's often better to just not take the "risk", even if you're pretty confident it wouldn't actually be a problem, especially since you have a large enough ES pool for the test quality to not suffer.

Second, and in my opinion, most importantly: the UT Invitational and UT Regional are run by an alumni group at UT Austin, and it's a service done by alumni for current competitors and their teams. When I ran these tournaments, I wanted it to be a competition that gave back to the Science Olympiad community and didn't require current competitors, coaches, parents, etc. to do any work. It's hard to put into words, and it's something I didn't care about until I started university. It's sort of like being a good "host". If you invite someone to your house, you make an effort to give them food, water, etc. and make them feel as comfortable as possible. It's about them, not you. I imagine it's the same reason Solon HS doesn't rank itself at its invitational, for example.

To be clear, I agree with all of y'all that high school (and even middle school) students can write phenomenal tests, and in some cases, tests that are significantly better than adults. Like pepperonipi said, someone's experience is more important than their age. I encourage each and every one of y'all to reach out to tournaments (particularly ones that need all the help they can get) and help the Science Olympiad community by writing killer tests. I just wanted to give a couple of reasons that a tournament wouldn't allow middle school or high school students to supervise which aren't related at all to their intelligence or capability as Science Olympiad test writers.
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Re: Thoughts on HS Writers

Post by Unome »

Yeah, whether a TD can push back against accusations of bias ultimately depend on tournament-specific conditions, local culture, and the like - there are plenty of factors at play beyond the prospective HS ES's skills alone. Consider, for example, that in some places team coaches as event supervisors for a state tournament is normal, whereas in other places it's uncommon and would tend to produce accusations of bias.
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Re: Thoughts on HS Writers

Post by BennyTheJett »

This is all true. I think that online tournaments have created a good avenue for younger writers, which will definitely help Scioly down the road (as I myself am highly addicted to test writing). That said, I think that the system in place now is good! I like that there are programs to help people get better at test writing (insert self promotion for SSSS or CSE). I think that, like anything, there will always be pluses and minuses. Some tournaments will do different things based on what they want. Great part about Science Olympiad IMO is that we empower younger individuals to do great things without getting them in too far over their heads.
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Re: Thoughts on HS Writers

Post by Adi1008 »

Unome wrote: August 9th, 2021, 9:10 pm Yeah, whether a TD can push back against accusations of bias ultimately depend on tournament-specific conditions, local culture, and the like - there are plenty of factors at play beyond the prospective HS ES's skills alone. Consider, for example, that in some places team coaches as event supervisors for a state tournament is normal, whereas in other places it's uncommon and would tend to produce accusations of bias.
I think you brought up a great point there. Even on the forums, I've noticed people joke about a school winning an event at state when it's run by their coach (I think the specific example I'm remembering is from NJ), and even when I was running Optics at Cyfalls as a senior in high school, I'd get dirty looks from some other parents/coaches.

Also, this is generally unrelated to the topic of HS students supervising at tournaments, but it's something that this discussion made me think about more. I might cross-post/move it to the Texas forum so it doesn't detract from this thread.

Texas is an interesting mix, where every invitational (except UT and Seven Lakes) has coaches/students/outside help run events, but at the regional and state tournaments, everything is required to be done "in-house" (I only got to run events at the Katy Regional, which was run by my middle school). I assume the reasons for this are similar to the ones I talked about in my previous post. I think most regionals in Texas struggle to find ESs for their events, so they often run way less than the full slate. Back when I was a competitor, it was common to go to regionals that ran only ~10/28 events (Texas has 5 additional trial events). It's gotten a lot better over the past 2-3 years, with part of the reason being ATX Science Olympiad helping other tournaments fill in the gaps. However, I honestly think Texas would benefit if their regionals allowed coaches to help out in some form. I'd rather go to a regional where all the events are run with the help of coaches than one where 10/28 events are run with everything being done "in-house". To the best of my knowledge, this is similar to how regionals in Ohio are run, and I think it's a better system. (In general, I just have a lot of respect for how the Midwest runs Science Olympiad compared to Texas.)
BennyTheJett wrote: August 9th, 2021, 9:57 pm This is all true. I think that online tournaments have created a good avenue for younger writers, which will definitely help Scioly down the road (as I myself am highly addicted to test writing). That said, I think that the system in place now is good! I like that there are programs to help people get better at test writing (insert self promotion for SSSS or CSE). I think that, like anything, there will always be pluses and minuses. Some tournaments will do different things based on what they want. Great part about Science Olympiad IMO is that we empower younger individuals to do great things without getting them in too far over their heads.
I really agree with what you said. In my opinion, there are always going to be some tournaments that stay alumni-only (like MIT), and I think that's okay. The rise of virtual tournaments and opportunities like CSE and SSSS go a long way towards providing more opportunities for HS students to supervise, and I think those are really important to strengthening the Science Olympiad as a community as a whole.
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