Studying computer science education as if it is a phenomenon that we discovered growing on our shoreline instead of a goddamn field that we are constructing every moment. JFC. Abundant evidence continues to emerge that says how we teach computing is extremely broken. Students' failures in the context of a failing educational experience are not some kind of untroubled measure of ability.
By the way, Atwood in this 2006 blog quotes a part of the paper that says, if we used this predictive test to only admit students who have no risk of failing, then the failure statistics of CS would transform. It kind of SOUNDS like a good thing.
But this is a very common fallacious argument about education and selection: student "failure risk" is not a static innate trait we're trying to detect and exclude based on, it's WHAT WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE CHANGING WITH EDUCATION
If you have a fediverse account, you can quote this note from your own instance. Search https://mastodon.social/users/grimalkina/statuses/115701973540745665 on your instance and quote it. (Note that quoting is not supported in Mastodon.)