Standardized Tests
Standardized Tests (aka assessments, measures, sometimes included as “indicators”)
1) Evaluating schools because “both socioeconomic status and inherited academic aptitudes [individual abilities] reflect what children bring to school, not what they learn there,”2) Evaluating teachers because of “shifting ability-levels of a teacher’s students” from year to year,3) Promoting or grading students because these tests are only alimited “sample” of knowledge and skills not an “end of course test,” and4) Making classroom instructional decisions because of the limited scope of the tests. If this limited information is used to shape instruction, it may result in the instruction being “off-target.”
SUMMARY of Ten “Must Know” Facts About Educational Testing
Fact 1. Educational tests are much less accurate than most parents believe.
A child’s test performance on a given day can be greatly influenced by both physical factors and emotional factors. In addition, the tests themselves only sample a child’s skills and knowledge, and this sampling is often far from sufficient.
Fact 2. Educational tests allow teachers to make inferences about a student’s unseen skills or knowledge, but these inferences may or may not be valid.
Fact 3. High-stakes tests, depending on the particular way they are constructed, can have a decisively positive or negative effect on a child’s education. When students’ performances on a test have important consequences for students (such as grade-to-grade promotion or diploma-denial) or for those students’ teachers (such as test-basedevaluations of a school staff’s effectiveness), the test is referred to as a “high-stakes test.”
Fact 4. Achievement tests are intended to measure significant skills or bodies of knowledge that children should learn. A standardized aptitude test (like SAT and ACT), Standardized Tests | The Crucial Voice of the People: