Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2022 February 1

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February 1

How do you define or disambiguate "terminal program" (education)?

I’m reviewing an article that has the following sentence:

Teacher representatives expressed concern as to whether middle schools would or would not offer terminal programs for children who would not attend high school. When asked, McAndrew refused to give a direct answer. This lack of communication gave birth to strong suspicions that McAndrew intended to use the middle schools to move working class students into vocational programs while preparing wealthier students for high school.

From what I’ve gleamed so far, a terminal program is the general term for a type of educational program, of which a vocational program is only one type of terminal program, as there are many different kinds. The USDOS defines a terminal program in the context of higher education as "an Associate degree program leading to a specific career upon graduation". In the same context, another site defines a terminal program as the highest degree one can achieve in their specific field of expertise. So, this is all a bit confusing. Do we have an article on this subject, but under another name? If not, should we have an article on a terminal program, or should it redirect somewhere? If any educators know the answer, I would appreciate it. Viriditas (talk) 08:15, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Context matters. "Terminal" in this context means "not intended as preparation for further academic work" see here, definition 3b. What that means depends on both time and place. The clue from your writing is "whether middle schools would or would not offer terminal programs for children who would not attend high school", in other words, whether middle schools would offer some sort of educational program designed for students who would be ending (or terminating) their educational career at the end of middle school. I hope that makes sense. --Jayron32 11:59, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

It makes perfect sense, thank you. It’s just that I’ve never heard (or read) the term used this way. This content is from the 1920s, so I wonder if that’s the reason, but with the addition of the other examples up above, it comes off as jargon unique to the field of education. My initial problem is that when I read about a "terminal program" my mind thinks of a terminal emulator, so I was hoping we had an already existing article on a terminal program (education) that I could use as a target for a redirect to prevent this from happening to anyone else. Viriditas (talk) 21:14, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

We do have an article Terminal degree, giving (in a context of higher education) the two uncomfortably co-existing rather different senses. A program leading to a terminal degree – in either sense – is sometimes called a "terminal program",^[1][2][3] but I think "terminal-degree program" is more common (and clearer).  --Lambiam 23:24, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, again. Since you and Jayron are some of the most knowledgeable people on refdesk, I wonder if you could answer a follow up question. It seems to me that the very idea of a terminal program or terminal degree is outdated. Am I wrong in this assessment? Since most vocations, credentials, or higher academic degree programs will inevitably include continuing education of some kind or another, which is true for almost every professional in their respective field, it feels like the idea of a terminal program or degree no longer holds true. Examples include the postdoctoral researcher, and people active at research institutes, which can often bleed into or crossover into private industry. Perhaps this term is used simply to convey the known limits of the academic system, I don’t know, but I don’t see how it is useful. Viriditas (talk) 00:04, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

In terms of recognized formal academic degrees, Philosophiae Doctor has been the highest recognition of its kind since such degrees started to be awarded, with a possible extra recognition attached in the form summa cum laude, not a different degree but a distinction. Of course, a Nobel Prize is considered a (much) higher form of recognition, but it is not a degree. Not having a crystal ball I cannot foresee whether "PhD" will remain the summit, degree-wise, or if degree-awarding institutions will eventually come up with another recognized formal academic degree to top the PhD degree. All I can say is that I see no signs of developments hinting in that direction. At a certain level of professional competence, degrees and diplomas for successfully rounded training posts are no longer important; what counts are one's actual accomplishments. The usefulness of the term "terminal degree" in the sense of "terminal academic degree" is mainly in its being used as a discipline-independent qualification used by some institutions as a soft* prerequisite for certain positions, such as senior lecturer; US universities do not require a Master of Fine Arts to have a PhD to become a senior lecturer. (Unfortunately for holders of an MFA degree, this is not necessarily the case at non-US universities.) *"Soft", because the requirement is usually relaxed with an "or equivalent" escape.  --Lambiam 09:11, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

It absolutely isn't outdated. A "terminal degree" is the term used, in any field, for the highest level of formal university training a person can receive. Wikipedia has an article titled terminal degree that list some. That doesn't mean that a person is legally prevented from learning any more information, it just means "in this course of study at the university level, this is the highest level of certification you can earn". In many cases, people do go on to more training. For example, some fields like engineering require on-the-job training to become fully licensed. The terminal professional degree is still a master of engineering degree; the highest degree normally available to a person who will be a working engineer; however to be a professional engineer one often needs to have 4 years of experience as an engineer in training, and then pass a series of exams. Training may continue past a terminal degree, but the terminal degree is the end of the classroom education. --Jayron32 13:07, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

I’m saying the idea of a terminal program or degree is outdated. All fields require continuing education of some kind or another. The idea that you’ve mastered a subject and learned all that can be learned seems rooted in thinking from the Middle Ages and previous centuries, when people erroneously believed they had mastered a discipline and there was nothing else to be learned. This is one reason why Max Planck and many others have criticized the failure of experts to change their positions when they are established in their field. As such, academic fields are stymied by the idea, because they rally around to protect their field from changing and progressing based on new findings. I am arguing that the idea of a terminal degree is to blame for this. Imagine if instead of progressing to a single closed end point in learning, it opens up to a wider inclusivity of interdisciplinary fields as you learn more, a process which would conceivably never end. The way we systemize and account for knowledge would change overnight. Viriditas (talk) 21:49, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

While all fields require continuing education, that does not invalidate the concept of a terminal degree. As I said, when you earn a terminal degree, there is no law that says you cannot keep learning. There's no one who comes to your house or your place of work that will sanction you for learning new things after you have a terminal degree. The concept of a terminal degree does not mean (and it never has) "the end of learning". I don't know why you keep interpreting it to mean that. The concept of a terminal degree means "the end of the available formal university education in this field". That is different from what you are talking about. No one (not me, not anyone else) has ever said that a terminal degree means that one has mastered a discipline and there was nothing else to be learned. You literally invented that idea out of whole cloth just so that you could disagree with it. That's not what a terminal degree means. --Jayron32 12:51, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

I don’t believe the concept of a terminal degree is relevant in the 21st century because knowledge doesn’t terminate at a specific point of demarcation. It comes from a time when it was mistakenly believed that one could learn everything. I’m clearly the one saying this, not you. The entire concept of academia needs to change to accommodate the newer paradigms. It hasn’t, and that’s my point. Viriditas (talk) 21:49, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

You keep ignoring me. You are objecting to a concept that does not exist. You created something to object to that no one else ever believed before you created it in your mind, and then created an objection to your own imagined thing. I don't know what else to say about that. When you say "I don't believe "X" is relevant because "Y", but you yourself invented "Y" because no one ever said or thought such a thing, that's not a valid objection. That's a strawman argument. Please stop. --Jayron32 16:12, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

I won’t stop objecting to an educational curriculum designed a thousand years ago in the Midde Ages, when the idea of a terminal program arose to prevent the education of serfs, and the concept of a terminal degree was designed, not to further knowledge, but to create teachers, who were not expected to keep the boundaries of learning open and fluid, but closed off and contained. This is likely one of the reasons education has failed to match the progression of knowledge, as teachers are expected to teach an accepted body of knowledge to their students, but at the cost of a delay between paradigms, so that each generation learns a body of knowledge that is already out of date by the time they graduate. This problem is compounded by Planck’s observation (supported by recent studies), that shows that instead of synthesizing new knowledge from different fields and moving towards advancement, departments circle the wagons and prevent new ideas from taking hold so as to preserve their reputations and careers. A simple rethinking of the academic paradigm would ameliorate and mitigate this concern. I think we are free to disagree. Viriditas (talk) 22:05, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

FWIW, the question of whether schools (usually high schools) should offer what used to be called "terminal programs" is still very much alive, but has been re-formulated. For example, in Canada, high schools over the last thirty years have slowly and unevenly moved towards what is called destreaming. When I went to high school in the late 80s/early 90s, the school's courses were basically split into three segments, called Advanced/Academic, General, and Basic. In broad strokes, the Advanced courses were meant as prep for university, while the other two were meant for some combination of students bound for college and/or not pursuing further education. In particular, the "Basic" program was meant for remedial students who were just trying to get their GED. Even then there were fierce battles by all sides that the system made no sense, that Basic was a ghetto, etc. One of the more persuasive arguments was that, due to social pressure, students would try very hard to get into a "higher" level than they should have, resulting in poor grades, frustration, and dropping out. That is, instead of taking general courses and passing with a diploma, kids would start off in advanced so as not to appear dumb to their friends and drop out by third year. In the quarter century since then, the broad movement has been to remove those streams, especially at the start (though Ontario has been very slow in this). But for all intents and purposes, the basic stream was meant to be terminal, in the sense that few of those students would go on to post-secondary education. Matt Deres (talk) 16:04, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, that was the information I was originally looking for. Can you point me in the direction of other discussions about it in the literature? I was hoping to disambiguate between terminal program, terminal program (education), and terminal degree. Viriditas (talk) 21:48, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't have a lot more to offer; I briefly got stirred into the debate as a high school senior and then again a few years ago as a parent council member, but I'm not well-read on the literature. I tried Googling for destreaming academic and all I got was stuff for Ontario or the other provinces, so I'm not sure if destreaming is just local jargon or if Google is limiting my results due to my location, but it's maybe a place to start. Matt Deres (talk) 20:28, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

I’ll keep looking, thanks. Viriditas (talk) 22:05, 4 February 2022 (UTC)