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Weighing a pig DOES fatten it!
A favourite saying of critics of standardized testing is that “just weighing a pig doesn’t fatten it”. It seems to be part of the canon at faculties of education where it is considered a definitive rebuttal of test proponents. However, a little thought and a thimble full of knowledge of modern quality management practices quickly reveals how fatuous this saying is as the posting below to a QM forum reveals. (If I was a pig farmer experimenting with feeds as much as our schools are experimenting with their teaching methods, I’d be doing a whole lot of weighing!)
@Mark – The act of weighing a pig doesn’t make it any fatter, but consider two farmers. One weighs his pigs every day and charts how much they have gained. The second farmer, doesn’t weigh his pigs or even look at them to see if they are growing. The first farmer’s pigs are almost certainly going to weigh more over time because the farmer is paying attention to the weight and this will modify his behavior in how he takes care of the pigs. A better example is if the farmer was weighing himself.