Standardized Test Validity

When one speaks of intelligence or how bright another person is, the often quoted figure is the IQ or intelligence quotient. It is the most often used standard of how smart a person is. This paper shall look at what intelligence tests measure, how the IQ tests measure intelligence and interrogate their history. It shall then apply the tests to school policy and hence evaluate their validity.

Standardized testing has been ruling over the lives of students, making or breaking them in their education without fair judgement. Tests like the SAT and the ACT count for way too much when applying to colleges, which in turn limits the student 's capabilities to thrive in an environment that would benefit them. There are many problems within a standardized test that deems them to be unreliable as a true test of knowledge. Although designed to test groups of students on intelligence, standardized testing neglects to fairly acknowledge the abilities of each unique student which reflect their true capabilities.

Although standardized tests do not accurately represent a student’s performance and future, they do present the opportunity to test an individual’s general knowledge. The tests also give students the chance to test their test-taking efficiency and time management, whether or not the individual is under tremendous amounts of stress. With these assessments, students can rank their performance and improve for future tests.

The use of standardized testing to measure students’ knowledge is an inaccurate reflection of their capabilities. By being forced to take a test that does not effectively show their abilities, students become overstressed, and the tests themselves do not promote true academic achievement. Rather than learning about subjects in order to gain knowledge, students simply memorize facts and formulas to get a decent test score. Standardized tests are not an appropriate measure of student performance, only benefit certain groups of students, and do not prepare students for the real world.

Michelle Obama once said, “If my future were determined by my performance on a standardized test, I wouldn’t be here. I guarantee you that.” Standardized testing is, “any form of test that requires all test takers to answer the same questions, in the same way, and that is scored in a “standard” or consistent manner” (edglossary.org, Standardized Test). Standardized testing is used in most schools and is used to determine the futures of many student’s educations. These tests usually have sets of multiple choice, or true or false questions that are to be answered within a limited amount of time. Many people think that this is the only way to accurately measure a student’s individual intelligence. Even though almost all schools make students

First, assume, with proof, that your intelligence is decided by tests. I thought that standardized testing was left behind in my teenage years. Multiple-choice tests and essay questions were to become a forgotten nightmare of our youths. But our “glorious government leaders” decided to prove me wrong! In under three years. Our lives have transformed into a

Each year many high school students are encouraged to take standardized tests. They are told how essential the tests are and to spend vast amounts of time preparing for them. Although many people think that standardized tests are a useful tool for the measurement of students’ aptitude and intelligence, they are ineffective to represent the true proficiency of their understanding.

Standardized tests are one of major steps that helps students get admitted to college. For more than 50 years in the United States, standardized testing has been a “scourge to student life” and pressured students to do their best. Questions that are designed for standardized tests are based on finding an individual’s aptitude to determine how they can solve problems in the real world. With lurking opinions of whether standardized testing should continue to be enforced or abolished, standardized testing has made an impact to students around the country by setting an educational background.

Standardized tests are often used to determine where students rank among their peers. However, much of the time tests

The college admissions test fail to capture the true intelligence possessed by students. According to a theory made by Howard Gardner, there are eight distinct intelligences that humans can have. These are the categories revolving around intelligence: Musical-rhythmic, Visual-spatial, Verbal-linguistic, and Logical-mathematical intelligences. Unfortunately, the ACTs and SATs only gauge the student's ability to answer Verbal-linguistic and Logical-mathematical questions. Thus, the other abilities that students do enthrall are not represented well in these tests.

Diane Ravitch once said “Sometimes, the most brilliant and intelligent minds do not shine in standardized tests because they do not have standardized minds.” Standardized test “is any form of test that requires all test takers to answer the same questions, or a selection of questions from common bank of questions, in the same way.” Different students will take the same test and then the test will be evaluated by professors to see how students did. Standardized tests also provides teacher evaluation, to evaluate if the professor is teaching the students in the right way and if students are understanding what the professor is teaching. Like many issues in education, standardized test is a controversial topic among professors, voters and parents. A lot of people believe that standardized testing is good for student and they show student’s achievements. Others disagree and believe that standardized tests don't measure student’s learning.

Standardized tests are more important than some people think. Aaron Churchill from Thomas B. Fordham institute says that there are three main

Intelligence tests are inaccurate to measures true ability of a person because genes affect how a person responds to their surroundings, the tests cannot measure the person biological makeup or his true potential for being “smart”.

Educational assessments have for long formed a fundamental part of the American school system. In fact, they have been so well established that most of us could not imagine a world without them. For years, politicians have claimed that educational assessments, such as standardized tests, are a vital determinant of the goals of education. Therefore, policies have continued to hold schools accountable for measuring up to the given standards. Accordingly, because standardized tests are alleged to be objective, efficient, rigorous, and fair, educators and politicians have resorted to use these test scores to allocate resources in public schools, and more recently, to evaluate teachers. However, although the intended role of educational assessments is to measure how well students have learned the material, standardized tests have often failed to capture the diversity of its tested population. As a result, “critics who ignore the impact of social factors on test scores miss the point” (Koretz, 2008). Likewise, the interpretation and actual use of the results is often inappropriate, and therefore standardized tests have become an obstacle rather than a tool for education. As a result, it has become essential to consider how reliability, validity, measurement error, and sampling error

The debate on standardized tests and its adequacy in testing a student’s knowledge about a subject has been going on for many years. Tests, in general, has been around for centuries and without them there would not be progress and no gleams of progress. Students ranging from elementary school to high school have experienced standardized testing. Teachers, educators, and parents are also involved in the students’ lives, which revolves around the tests, one way or another. There are many views on standardized test. However, the three most common views are: educators who are for standardized test which benefits students, educators who are at the other extreme of opposing standardized tests, and educators who view tests are a benefit if done in appropriate amounts.