Original Ideas / Rough Outline
TOPIC: testing prove your knowledge? Testing abilities? Learning styles / disabilities
THESIS: With a proven variety of learning styles, standardized testing cannot accurately portray the knowledge of an individual.
QUESTIONS (Testing proves knowledge?):
- Would you consider yourself a good test taker?
RESEARCH
- Specialist in SD: Dr. Josh Feder
- "Standardized" - should NOT need to study outside, hire a tutor, buy study books...
- Different learning styles / personality styles
- Test anxiety interview Q?
- How much do scores go up after simply practicing "test taking skills" ?
- Evidence that it shows test taking skills, not general knowledge
- Would you consider yourself a good test taker?
RESEARCH
- Specialist in SD: Dr. Josh Feder
- "Standardized" - should NOT need to study outside, hire a tutor, buy study books...
- Different learning styles / personality styles
- Test anxiety interview Q?
- How much do scores go up after simply practicing "test taking skills" ?
- Evidence that it shows test taking skills, not general knowledge
QUOTES / PARAPHRASING (DATA)
Dean's remarks -
Dean Charles Davis
Q: What is your opinion about the SAT and ACT tests in regard to their ability to show an individual's intelligence?
"They're a crap shoot, I've always considered them a fairly poor measure of academic aptitude."
"They're the best tool we have. So maddeningly enough, while they're certainly an imperfect tool, they are probably the best indicator we have beyond transcripts."
"Now, transcripts I think are a much better indication. Particularly of your core courses and the rigor that was applied to those classes. It allows us to look across the state, and across the country, at high school performance, and so you can compare with your peers based on the rigor of your school."
"It's incredibly difficult to make comparative admissions decisions across schools, so the more data that they're armed with, the better."
"SAT and ACT are a part of that mix, and I think they're going to be for the foreseeable future."
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/test/what.html
"...psychologist Claude Steele pointed out that the test has been found to measure only about 18 percent of the things that it takes to do well in school, and thus is not a very good predictor of how a student will do in college. "The SAT is not going to get you very far with predicting who's going to do well in college," he told FRONTLINE."
"According to the College Board, the SAT now does not measure any innate ability. Wayne Camara, Director of the Office of research at the College Board told FRONTLINE that the SAT measures "developed reasoning," which he described as the skills that students develop not only in school but also outside of school."
"When these tests were originally developed," said Harvard social policy professor Christopher Jencks, "people really believed that if they did the job right they would be able to measure this sort of underlying, biological potential. And they often called it aptitude, sometimes they called it genes, sometimes intelligence."
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/test/views.html
Greg Jouriles
Author info:
Greg chaired the joint district-association committee that overhauled the evaluation system to link the California Standards for the Teaching Profession (CSTP), Peer Assistance and Review (PAR), and the Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment (BTSA) program.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/07/09/36jouriles.h33.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/test/what.html
"...psychologist Claude Steele pointed out that the test has been found to measure only about 18 percent of the things that it takes to do well in school, and thus is not a very good predictor of how a student will do in college. "The SAT is not going to get you very far with predicting who's going to do well in college," he told FRONTLINE."
"According to the College Board, the SAT now does not measure any innate ability. Wayne Camara, Director of the Office of research at the College Board told FRONTLINE that the SAT measures "developed reasoning," which he described as the skills that students develop not only in school but also outside of school."
"When these tests were originally developed," said Harvard social policy professor Christopher Jencks, "people really believed that if they did the job right they would be able to measure this sort of underlying, biological potential. And they often called it aptitude, sometimes they called it genes, sometimes intelligence."
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/test/views.html
Q: You say the SAT doesn't measure intelligence. What does it measure?
The SAT is said to predict freshman year grades in college, a little. And it does. It measures it a little. Almost anything you do, including family income, will measure freshman year grades a little. But the point is that it doesn't measure intelligence. It doesn't measure anything that's worth a 100 million dollars a year prepping for it.
Q: Are you saying the SAT is a guessing game?
Part of the SAT is a guessing game. Fair Test's position is reasonably new on it. We've never said that the SAT is not measuring something meaningful. There's a little part of meaning, there's a little part of background, there's a little part of schooling. But there's a lot of test-wiseness. There's a lot of 'how shrewdly you can play the game?' There's a lot that can be taught in coaching courses that has nothing to do with any of the skills you need to succeed in college or in life.
Q: Wayne Camara, head of the College Board's Office of Research, says the SAT is a measure of verbal and mathematical reasoning ability.
Yes, one of the things the SAT is measuring in small part, are those skills. But it's measuring a whole lot of other things. And when you use the SAT as the major factor--or worse, the sole factor--to make high stakes decisions, to define what is merit, you're relying not on what most people think of is merit. But on these very trainable skills that coaching courses and others help people learn.
Q: What does the SAT predict?
It does correlate extremely highly with an IQ test. It was developed from the army IQ test...
That's part of the seedy under side of the SAT. The SAT was originally developed by straight out racists--eugenicists, people who thought my forbearers--not just people of color--were imbeciles and shouldn't be allowed in their country because they didn't know the language and couldn't score high on their test. I wouldn't suggest the current people who run those companies share those kinds of ugly views. But it's a self-reinforcing notion of defining intelligence as that which whatever the dominant group in society has. Ends up giving that group higher scores and lower scores. The fact that test scores correlate with test scores is rather meaningless. The tests are measuring the same set of factors. What's more important is whether the test accurately predicts how well you're going to do.
Q: Isn't it an IQ test?
No, it's not an IQ test. It's far from it. Developed reasoning skills measured on a test like the SAT, will link directly to the, the breadth and the depth of the curriculum students have been exposed to in school, but also out of school learning. Students who have read an incredible amount, whether it's in school assignments or out of school assignments, are more likely to do better on tests like the SAT but also in college.
So it's not an achievement measure, which would be redundant with what grades are. But it's certainly not an IQ test which would be an innate measure of ability. It's much more developed reasoning--the type of skills students develop over an extended period of time.
"The SAT measures only about 18%, [an] estimate range from 7 to 25%, of the things that it takes to do well in school. This is something that people should realize about the test. People think of it as capturing a very large proportion of things that are important to school success. The people that make these tests tell us, "No, that is not true. They don't capture a large portion of the things--about 18%." In many of the samples I've done research on, much smaller than that, sometimes 4% of the things that are predicting success in college for example. So it's not great, just like a free throw is to selecting a basketball team. And SAT is not going to get you very far with predicting who's going to do well in college. And certainly not far with regards to who is going to do well in society or contribute to society. It's just not that good a tool and that's the first thing to realize about it."
The second set of problems have to do with interpreting the scores on SAT tests. And again, the free throw example is useful. If a kid comes in and he shoots 10 out of 10 or zero out of 10, you might take note of that kind of performance with regard to selecting him on the basketball team. If he hits 10 out of 10, you say, "Well, okay, he's probably pretty good and that probably reflects something about his basketball playing. I'll put him on the team. Zero out of 10, that probably reflects something about his playing, he's off the team." Same with SAT tests I think. When you get really strong scores one way or the other, even though they're not as reliable, they often can bring to light talent that would not otherwise be seen."
I think we'd be way better off if we gave achievement tests and didn't emphasize the so-called aptitude test or now, just the mysteriously unlabeled SAT. I don't think it would change the results in favor of minorities to any great extent in the short run, but I do think it would have a good effect in the long run.
And the reason it would have a good effect is that if you start testing achievement you send a message to people that this is what you've got to learn to go to a good college, or to any college, whatever. And we know from all kinds of evidence that if you actually set a task like that, the minority students can do better than they're now doing. So I think that if we kind of change the way we set up the task and said this is a question of achievement, it's just like lots of other forms of achievement. You've got to work hard it, you've got to practice, you've got to get good at it.
You would have a very different state of mind than when it seems to people that this is something that is aptitude, unchangeable, inborn, you know, if I can't do, I just can't do it. That's a signal for defeat and giving up. And of course, it's not just a signal to minorities for giving up, it's a signal to any kid who tests badly and says, gee, I just don't get good scores on these kinds of tests. Whereas if you tell him, you know this is a math test, you have to understand the test, lots of people can learn that math if they work hard at it.
Author info:
Greg chaired the joint district-association committee that overhauled the evaluation system to link the California Standards for the Teaching Profession (CSTP), Peer Assistance and Review (PAR), and the Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment (BTSA) program.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/07/09/36jouriles.h33.html
1. MIT News
- MIT neuroscientists working with education researchers at Harvard University and Boston University
- Standardized test=Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS); studied population=1400 8th graders in Boston public school systems
- Even schools that raised MCAS scores (designed to measure crystallized intelligence, or knowledge and skills acquired in schools) did not raise fluid intelligence (analyzing abstract problems and logical thinking)
2. Measuring Student Achievement: A Study of Standardized Testing & Its Effect on Student Learning by (researcher) Jeremiah Gawthrop on April 29, 2014
3. Stereotype Threat
- "Stereotype threat" is a psychological phenomena that is an unconscious response to a negative stereotype about a group of people, by a member of that group
- Example: The statistic that white people generally score better on standardized tests could give rise, in black students, that whites have a higher cognitive ability, which is not true. When black students go to take standardized test, the high stress and anxiety about scoring lower and the want to score higher can lead to lower scores
- Standardized tests, therefore, are not infallible to social issues, and thus might make it look like a student is better or worse than another student, when in reality that's not true
4. Advocates and Critics
- Advocates: measure of achievement for college readiness (allows students to set themselves apart, and prove they are "bright and motivated" even if their schools didn't offer AP or Honors courses; consistent assessment (best way to measure that nationally, everyone is learning the same curriculum, not based on fluctuations in teacher grading); teacher evaluation (National Council on Teacher Quality noted in 2014 that 1/3 of states required evaluation policies, and they have improved their teacher quality grades at least one full grade level)
- Critics: stifles creativity; don't measure other valuable qualities like critical thinking and leadership; makes teachers "teach to the test," so less time is being spent on science, arts, and social studies; multiple choice is too simplistic; too many standardized tests
5. Cognitive psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman interview
- Quote: "It's not that I'm anti-IQ or anti-standardized tests, but I am against standardizing minds and ignoring the fact that there are multiple paths to the same outcome and that engagement is an extremely important aspect of the equation."
