Predicting Success

When a university department hires an entry-level candidate to be an assistant professor, the members of the department frequently have widely different views of whether the new assistant professor will be a successful researcher, an engaging teacher, and a valued colleague.  This very general problem of predicting success is the subject of a wonderful piece in this week's New Yorker by Malcolm Gladwell, "Most Likely to Succeed: How Do We Hire When We Can't Tell Who's Right for the Job?"   The article is available here, in the magazines "Annals of Education."  The article compares the difficulties of predicting who will be a good elementary school teacher (with the difference between good and bad teachers being demonstrably huge) and a good NFL quarterback.  Very highly recommended. 

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