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Standardized Testing

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Standardized Testing

Noureddine Mohamed Qassimi

University of the People

Department of Education, University of the People

EDUC 5220 Curriculum Design - AY2021-T3

Dr. Anne Wade

Mar 13, 2021

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Standardized Testing

Tests are found in all cultures, and assessing the understanding of a person learning a

new skill is the same in all societies. Standardized Tests as we know them today began in

earnest in China as a form of proficiency testing to find out who would be best suited for a

particular job. Fletcher (2009) stated, “The earliest records of Standardized Tests come from

China, where government job hopes had to fill exams to test their knowledge of Confucian

philosophy and poetry.” The most recent impetus for Standardized Tests was the industrial

revolution and movement to more school education, in which the students were transferred

from the workforce to school. One of the easiest, and arguably cheapest, ways to test a great

number of these children was through a standardized test (Poulsen & Hewson, n.d.). The

purpose of this paper is to define this approach, discuss its positives and negatives, and how it

may be implemented.

Standardized Tests can be defined as “an appropriate measure of student’s, teacher’s,

and school’s performance” (Herman & Golan, 1991). Popham (1999) also described

Standardized Tests as “ any examination that is administered and scored in a predetermined,

standard manner” (p.1). Simply put, Standardized Tests are carefully designed tests that have

a consistent approach to evaluating, managing, and interpreting test results. The main issues

with standardized performance tests are the validity and applicability of the test results.

Validity refers to how closely the test results reflect students' knowledge of the subject.

Standardized Tests use a minimum number of questions. If for environmental reasons, even a

question or two is wrongly answered, it will affect individual student results. The factors that

cause a student to answer a question right or wrong are infinite and can be broken down into

the following areas (Poulsen & Hewson, n.d.):

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 Situational/environmental confounding factors: Although Standardized Tests attempt

to minimize confusing variables by requiring students to write in similar situations, some

students may write in situations that are significantly different from other students.

 Personal/emotional factors: Students who are poor test-takers because of the nerves

associated with testing may not be able to demonstrate what they can achieve in the high-

stakes atmosphere of standardized testing. Their fear becomes the determining factor in

how well they do the test, not whether they know the material.

 Grade-spread requirement in standardized testing: Perhaps the main concern with

standardized achievement tests is that the tests should be based on the curriculum

outcomes prescribed by the governing bodies of the provinces or states. Standardized

Tests must result in a unit test that is not suitable for everyone, as Popham (1999) says,

“standardized proficiency tests invariably contain several elements that do not correspond

to what is emphasized in a particular setting” (p. 331). A 1983 study on the

correspondence between textbook content and the standardized test showed that “no

textbook deals with 50 percent of the content of a test satisfactorily” (Popham, p. 331).

That said, there was a poor correlation between what was in the test and the textbooks,

which were an important resource in preparing students for the test.

Tests like the SATs are known to cause great stress on students as they are such

determinants of their future education. As far as teachers are concerned, these tests have taken

on the role of reflecting the quality of their teaching, which again is not true as they ultimately

have no real control over the students during the test and, therefore, poor performance on a

test should never mark a teacher as a bad one as many factors go into determining the quality

of an educator. Unfortunately, in underperforming schools, high-stakes testing is everything.

The performance of the exam indicates whether the school is performing well, whether the

staff needs to be changed, how much money should be provided, and whether the school is

only failing and possibly should be closed. All these stakes are very drastic and should not all
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depend on a single test. Hence, high-stakes testing is simply a stressful factor for both

teachers and students, and the results can be discouraging. Failure to pass a test, which is

supposed to be standard knowledge, creates discouragement and demotivation, and a student

who is classified as below average also feels so and thus gets into a state of ambivalence

towards learning.

My personal experience with Standardized Tests has never been drastically painful,

but it was indeed stressful, and at times I felt that the results did not represent what I thought

possible. I think many students and teachers who are committed to standardized-test-free

education would share this feeling. I have learned a lot about challenges related to

Standardized Tests that I previously overlooked from researching. I also support the idea that

high-risk testing is not the right approach to quickly and effectively making changes in

schools. Likewise, I do not believe that Standardized Tests should be abolished, however, I

think that they should not be used to fully determine the performance of a teacher, school, or

student. Furthermore, I agree with the popular belief that the school's focus on high-stakes

tests leads to a narrowing of the curriculum. Standardized Tests aim to test common

knowledge that can sometimes be foundational skills. Hence, focusing a curriculum on only

basic and simple skills does not prepare a student for their future career, but only for the

short-term goal of passing a test.

In conclusion, I support the fact that some students are not the best test-takers and

therefore do poorly on Standardized Tests, however, they should not be penalized for this.

Similarly, teachers should not be penalized for student results. It is the responsibility of the

students to get the scores they deem necessary. Teachers are merely an aid to help students

achieve their educational goals, and this aligns with the idea that teachers should not be held

accountable for test scores. In short, the tests reflect a problem, yet the solution is not to

change everything once the results are negative.

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References

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Educational Researcher, 36(5), 258-267.

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Fletcher, D. (2009, December 11). Standardized testing. Time.

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