BACK HERE WITH BLOG PART 2
What a lot of people don't know is that academic institutions are designed to cater to industrialization. Around the turn of the century in the United States, many industrialized companies sought to increase the amount of workers in their facilities to keep up with the demand.
After this reading, I felt like I could make a correlation between this historical concept and that of standardized tests. Here we can see that objectivity is industrialized in the form of standardized tests.
In my opinion, I never had a problem with standardized tests. This is not to say that I have aced every single standardized test given to me, but I do feel like they do provide a sense of simple means of testing to see if a person knows what it is they intended to learn. This I suppose I would consider it's only beneficial aspect. HOWEVER, I do NOT think that it is fair to say that one test should determine a whole ass pathway of life for someone. Some standardized tests can make or break a person's future and potential. For example, the ACT/SAT was a big thing for a while (now, a lot of people don't give a shit), which in some cases prohibited people from going to their dream schools. I feel that the ACT/SAT does not reflect a person's true intelligence, and does not show their true potential. The reading gives characteristics as to how standardized tests work (grad equivalents, percentiles, reliability, validity, etc). I feel that they do provide a sense of statistics and data analyzation, but I do not think that as a society we should base actual people on a number. That is where I draw the line, and I hope you do too.
Something the article also does not talk about in lieu of the idea of standardized tests is that they do not take into account what happens before and after the test itself. Often times it does not take into consideration the reality of students. Perhaps one student may perform better because they actually have a healthy family living situation at home and have access to food, whereas some students underperform because they do not have that same access or privilege. Again, this is all subjective.
Here are some questions that I thought about when reading the article, feel free to answer whichever:
-Have you ever had an experience with standardized tests where you felt like you knew the subject but the test didn't reflect any of that?
-Can you think of other benefits/disadvantages of standardized tests not mentioned by the reading or me?
-Are there other ways to test objectivity? In what ways can you see yourself straying away from standardized tests all while testing to see if your students know what you want them to know?
-Do we need standardized tests?
-A more philosophical question: Standardized tests are designed in objectivity, but do you think that this objectivity is subjective?
I agree with the detriments of standardized testing you mentioned - I remember being in school hating standardized tests as a General Concept because they measure and grade students based on one single day out of their entire experience learning the content being tested - like, there are so many factors that influence how students might do on a standardized test. They might be having a rough week, or they might have mega test anxiety, etc etc etc. I guess kinda in a weird and ugly twist, there are too many variables influencing the usefulness of this test that was supposed to control for variability in the first place. That being said, though, I always found them easier to take because they were straightforward. BUT that doesn't mean I retained anything from them: I can't remember a single interesting science subject on my ACT, but I remember looking for like, patterns in the answer choices and knowing how to game the test by ruling out answers etc. Standardized tests feel very like, one-and-done. Like you said in your post, you take this one test on that one day out of your entire life, and suddenly everything is just over and wrapped up and decided for you, in some cases for the rest of your life (unless ofc you have the money to retake them but anyways that's another Thing lmao) The point is: just because standardized tests were Meant to streamline the process of assessing students, doesn't mean that 1) they actually do and 2) they do a sufficient job of the assessment itself.
ReplyDeleteI really like that last question - there's a whole lot behind what makes standardized tests not as objective as they were meant to be...like, they're I guess objective by definition, but the intent behind the tests and how they're set up can be more subjective depending on how you look at it. Sometimes questions are weirdly worded and they're hard to read, sometimes it's just hard to focus when faced with multiple choices for an answer that all look similar, sometimes dead silent and strict and pressuring testing environments are uncomfortable for students (for some reason...) - students who get held up by things like this are at stronger risk of like, getting weeded out of being part of the people who "pass." Idk when you look at standardized tests and how they're designed, there are certain traits of them that make you think they're looking for only certain kids to pass. It might not be intentional, but those effects exist and are real. There were deliberate choices made behind the design of these tests, and so I don't know if I can call the products of that process entirely objective if that makes sense.
I honestly don’t know one way or the other if I’m pro or against standardized testing. But I do think there are pros and cons on the subject. On one hand, these tests provide a way to compare student knowledge to find learning gaps. Even if a perfect score isn’t achieved, knowing where a student stands helps them be able to address learning deficits. But I think these tests can also have a positive impact on student achievement. I know I always felt better about my ability to comprehend subject materials if I was able to do well with the contents presented on a standardized test. On the other hand, not every student performs well on a test, despite having a comprehensive knowledge and understanding about the subject matter involved. Standardized tests may allow for a direct comparison of data, but they do not account for differences in the students who are taking the tests. This can be very discriminatory because they assume that every student is a first-language English speaker. Also, students who have special needs, learning disabilities, or have other challenges which are addressed by an Individualized Education Plan may also be at a disadvantage when taking a standardized test compared to those who do not have those concerns. Basically, I think they can be a useful tool for student evaluation, but only when used correctly. Like any system, it can be abused by those who are looking for shortcuts.
ReplyDeleteThis is Ryan M just in case the whole name thing is a problem.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to talk about that last question (how could I not) so in short, that objectivity is subjective. It favors specific types of knowledge and how one access that knowledge, it really tests for academic/intellectuals rather than how well one actually knows the subject. Being that these tests are owned and run by a company means that there trying to profit off of these things becoming necessary. Things would be better if there was a different system in place that allowed for other ways of showing various intelligence.
I totally agree that standardized test can be unfair. I don't think that one test should be able to determine your entire grade in your class. I always hated classes in which tests was such a big percentage of your class grade. When I was in high school, testing was always a big part of our grade and I would hate it simply because homework assignment that we would spend so much time on because we would constantly do them on a daily basis would only be a small percentage of our overall grade. Whereas, our test which we only had maybe 4 or 5 tests in the semester would be the majority of our grade. So If a student was having a bad day during one of the testing days it would greatly effect their grade.
ReplyDeleteI also did not like tests such ACT/SAT. Even though now schools don't really look at ACT/SAT score like they use to. Back then, your score determined your entire future. A score on one test does not determine how successful a student will be.