“No issue in the U. S. Education is more controversial than (standardized) testing. Some people view it as the linchpin of serious reform and improvement, others as a menace to quality teaching and learning” (Phelps). A tool that educators use to learn about students and their learning capabilities is the standardized test. Standardized tests are designed to give a common measure of a student’s performance. Popular tests include the SAT, IQ tests, Regents Exams, and the ACT.
“Three kinds of standardized tests are used frequently in schools: achievement, diagnostic, and aptitude” (Woolfolk 550). Achievement tests can be used to help a teacher assess a student’s strengths and weaknesses in a particular subject. Diagnostic tests are typically given to elementary school students when learning problems are suspected. Aptitude tests are designed to predict how a student will perform in the future. For example, the SAT predicts performance in the first year of college. Standardized tests give educators a standard measure or “yardstick” because such a large number of students across the country take the same test.
These tests are used to tell how well school programs are doing or to give a picture of the skills and abilities of students. Standardized tests; however, are problematic at all ages and levels of schooling. Standardized aptitude tests measure students’ abilities to learn in school, how well they are likely to succeed in future education. Rather than measuring knowledge of subjects taught in school, these tests measure a broad range of abilities or skills that are considered important to succeed in school.
The classroom setting and teacher are the key to assessment. “Pressure to produce higher scores leads teachers to focus on material that will be covered by the tests and to exclude everything else. The curriculum is thereby narrowed, which means that some subjects are ignored. Within those that are taught, lower order thinking skills are emphasized. As a result, test scores get inflated while real learning suffers” (Phelps).
Performance-based assessment guarantees an increased understanding of the growth of individual child. Such understanding reduces the need for currently used standardized tests. Standards for Education and Psychological Testing (American Psychological Association) states the definite standards for assessment by the American Educational Research Association, the American Psychological Association, and the National Council on Measurement in Education. It is made up of four major parts: standards for particular applications, technical standards for test construction and evaluation, professional standards for test use, and standards for administrative procedures.
A test that is technically adequate meets the criteria for validity, reliability, and norms. Validity is “the appropriateness, meaningfulness, and usefulness of the specific inferences” that can be made from the test results. (American Psychological Association 9) Validity is the degree to which a test measures what it is intended to measure. Reliability is the extent to which the test results are dependable and consistent. Unrelated to the purpose of the test, errors in measurement can be viewed through inconsistencies in the performance, motivation, or interests of students being tested. Norms can be shown in age or grade equivalence, standard scores, and percentiles.
They are generally shown in charts showing the performance groups of students who have taken the test. Norms show the comparison of the performance of new groups of test takers with the samples of students on whom the test was standardized. Goodwin and Driscoll (59-60) note that standardized tests have the following qualities: They provide a “systematic procedure for describing behaviors, whether in terms of numbers or categories. ” They have an established format and set materials. Also, they present the same tasks and require the same response modes from all test takers. At first glance, the reasoning behind today’s standardized tests sounds reasonable.
In theory, they give every student a solid picture of achievement and an equal opportunity for advancement in education. However, Standardized testing Essay is problematic at all ages and levels of schooling. The problem with standardized tests is that they tend to kill off the kind of education that matters most. After years of memorization of subject matter and tests, who were once intellectually excited grade school children have become either bored or grade obsessed high school students. Anxiety over upcoming tests and a constant concern for .
