By: ZAYAN SHAHID
Soft skills over rote learning or aptitude over infringement? With an ever-increasing rise in our current academic standards, standardized testing has now become a pivotal hallmark in assessing one’s academic aptitude and success. Proponents of standardized tests claim these exist as a necessary and fair benchmark for assessment in various academic contexts, especially, the college admission process. Moreover, they believe these tests can help to improve the quality of education by diagnosing learning gaps in our current education system. On the other hand, some argue how these instead reinstate socio-economic divides between classes and can be detrimental to students’ mental well being. This essay explores the effectiveness of standardized tests as a measure of student success through diverse perspectives and various educational, equitable, medical and socio-economic lenses.
To start with, it is argued that standardized testing proves to be an effective tool in setting a neutral benchmark in diverse educational contexts, especially when it comes to evaluating a student’s application in college admission process. American educationist Jack Buckley wrote an article supporting the efficacy of standardized tests in the college admission process, stating “for many college admission officers, standardized tests provide a neutral yardstick for measuring student potential and performance.” Buckley supports his argument as he underscores the precipitous rise in the volume and diversity of applicant pools as observed by the several admission officers in the U.S.A (Buckley, 2018). Buckley’s rationale is further corroborated by the fact, the number of college applications through the Common App rose from 8% to 17%, between 2014-15 and 2021-22 (Kim et al, 2022). This striking reality hence justifies the use of standardized tests as a tool to scrutinize the ever-increasing and diversified applicant pool in the college admission process. Moreover, Buckley provides logical reasoning for why standardized tests are an effective measure in navigating students’ applications; he highlights the “varying levels of academic rigor across high schools” and sheds light over the reality of grade inflation in high schools, validated by a fluctuating rise in grades over the past 20 years while the SAT scores remain relatively steady (Buckley, 2018). This may also suggest how various institutions may be biased to fabricate their students’ reports to guarantee them placement in prestigious institutions and is further corroborated by a report from the University of California faculty senate which claims, “test scores are currently better predictors of first-year GPA than high school grade point average” (Davis et al., 2020). He critically refutes the anecdotal claims made by many admission officers that test optional admission policies boost minority enrollment with no sufficient evidence backing them up, as he reasons how this policy only increases the number of applicants, reducing an institution’s acceptance rate and proliferating its ranking (Buckley, 2018). All in all, Buckley’s argument is well-reasoned and credible, which employs both logical reasoning and critical analysis of the evidence. Moreover, Jack Buckley is the senior vice president of research and evaluation at the American Institutes for Research and a research associate professor of applied statistics at New York University, hence his professional background and access to credible and reliable data sets backed up by academic institutions bolsters his authority over the issue, as we trust the author’s expertise. His objective approach strengthens his argument as he not only highlights the correlation between test optional policies and minority equities, but also critically refutes it. Ultimately, the article strongly justifies the use of standardized testing in evaluating students’ potential.
Another argument favoring the use of standardized testing as a measure for students’ success, lies in its potency to improve student outcomes and teaching, hence ameliorating the quality of education. A graduate student at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, Allison Morris, argues about how standardized tests can be used to diagnose and mitigate learning gaps in the education sector as she states, ” standardised tests lead to increased strategic behaviours on the part of schools and teachers” (Morris, 2011). She justifies, “student test results are used in accountability systems to reward and/or sanction schools”, hence allowing academic and public institutions to employ more data-driven policies in place to uplift the concurrent educational standards (ibid). Her argument is further echoed by a Singaporean author, who implies how PSLE, a national test taken in Singapore, persists as a tool educational professionals rely heavily on, “to provide curriculum guidelines” and “Knowing the assessment rubrics also helps schools to streamline their curriculum” (Chai, 2022). Moreover, Morris makes use of evidence-based reasoning to credit her argument where she cites research findings from a group of authors who evaluated No Child Left Behind (NLCB), a federal education legislation enacted in the United States, using National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data between 1990 and 2009 for 4th grade reading and 4th and 8th grade mathematics; authors found that “NCLB consistently improved both 4th and 8th grade mathematics”, elucidating a positive impact on student outcomes procured from the standardized tests (Wong, Cook and Steiner, n.d.). While Morris was a student when she authored the paper, the credibility of her paper comes from the endorsement and publication of OCED (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), a globally recognized forum, which bolsters the alignment of her report’s contents with international policy research standards and framework. Another strength of her argument lies in her objective and well-structured approach where she not only identifies the weaknesses in her paper’s literature, but also introduces the unintended downsides to standardized testing. Additionally, her argument employs both logical and evidence-based reasoning, however its findings must be assessed with caution and supplemented with more recent data, given the age of the source. Conclusively, Morris puts forward a well-reasoned and comprehensive argument where she elaborates on the effectiveness of standardized testing in streamlining and improving educational standards in USA, UK and OCED countries.
Conversely, an argument against standardized testing as an effective tool to measure students’ success is its aptness in perpetuating educational inequalities and reinforcing racial and economic disparities across various societies. Indian educationist Nilesh Nimkar wrote an article where he argues, “In a country as diverse as India,……… tests should be local and culturally appropriate” (Nimkar, 2019). He logically justifies how these standardized tests tend to be culturally inaccessible to masses, further hindering the marginalized children, “ignoring their indigenous knowledge, language, and problem-solving strategies” (ibid). He bolsters his argument by employing examplebased reasoning where he expands on how all the students are expected to write words in a standard language, although there are various dialects of Marathi, a local language, existing in various parts of Maharashtra, leading to linguistic variations (ibid). Hence his argument that these tests are insensitive to cultural and racial inconsistencies is rational, as he further provides the example of tests depicting “a picture of a wellmaintained French garden or a city park, expecting a rural child to talk about it” (ibid), thus elucidating how standardized tests may reinstate social and racial divides within a society and reiterates the inability of these tests to comprehensively assess a student. His views are further validated by an article endorsed by Britannica which states ” test designers rely on questions which assume background knowledge more often held by White, middle-class students.” and “Many well-resourced students have far greater access to test preparation, tutoring and taking the test multiple times” (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2000). Moreover, a Harvard based study confirms “children of the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans were 13 times likelier than the children of low-income families to score 1300 or higher on SAT/ACT tests” (Mineo, 2023). Nimkar has over 20 years’ experience in the field of early childhood education and curriculum development. His professional engagement as well as his Indian heritage provides him an authoritative voice over the issue and convinces readers’ regarding the authenticity of his argument. Moreover, the rational and example based reasoning speaks for itself. Furthermore, his argument is corroborated by two globally reputable and trusted sources and his article is published by India Development Review (IDR), which is an independent media platform, hence eliminating any potential for a possible vested interest in Nimkar’s argument. Ultimately, he strongly conveys the racial and economic inaccessibility of standardized testing.
Moreover, another argument against the use of standardized testing is the detrimental impact it inflicts on the mental well-being of the test takers, which stifles their performance in these high-stakes tests. This means that the standardized tests are ineffective in gauging students’ actual aptitude as the experts claim “As high-stakes tests loom, cortisol levels, a chemical marker for stress, rise by an average of 15 percent, a physiological response linked to an 80-point drop in SAT scores” (Terada, 2022). Terada backs up his argument by providing relevant findings from medical experts that it was found: cortisol levels dropped steeply during test-taking season amongst students, which the experts linked had more to do with “shutting down in the face of the test” and “triggering an emergency shut-off” (ibid). These studies transparently convey the idea how varying stress hormone levels sparked poor test performances in these high stake tests. This proves the detrimental impact standardized testing can have on students through a medical and personal lens. He also provides a personal testimony from an unnamed student sitting standardized tests as the student shares, “I enjoyed English, but my self-esteem really went down after the test” (ibid). Ultimately, Terada’s argument is sound as the experts’ voices throughout the article help elevate its credibility, while the personal testimonies provide a more sentimental and persuasive voice to his argument, allowing readers to resonate and engage with its text. For most part of his argument, the rationale is well supported by relevant evidence and examples, but the fact that many of these examples are U.S centric might take away from the global relevance of his argument. Moreover, the content of the article must be treated with caution as it was published on Edutopia, a popular educational media platform which is not peer-reviewed. However, his argument is strengthened by an Iranian study which scrutinizes the impacts of INUEE, a university entrance exam, on Iranian high school students and their parents. The findings revealed that “the students and their parents were negatively affected by INUEE, which indicates that the current implementation of INUEE as a high-stakes university entrance selection test is in conflict with the basic principles of educational justice” bolstering its detrimental impacts on student’s wellbeing (Safa and Sheykholmoluki, 2023).
Prior to conducting my research, I was biased to oppose the use of standardized tests, as I deeply resonated with the argument how these high-stakes tests can be detrimental to our health. After weighing both sides and critically analyzing perspectives from diverse voices such as educators, admission officers, medical experts and students, I am obliged to reconsider my stance: I now believe standardized tests are an effective measure of student success, as I now understand their deeper and wider role in diagnosing learning gaps encountered within our flawed education sector. Additionally, these tests exist as checks for our policy makers in scrutinizing weaknesses in our current educational framework, which I might have been negligent to. Moreover, the idea of grade inflation justifies my reconsideration of the vitality of these tests as a viable and fair assessment.
A crucial area which remained unaddressed and underexplored during my research was the relevance of standardized tests to real-world career readiness. Most of the standardized tests and traditional entrance exams rely heavily on one’s subject specific skills. Hence, it is imperative to further research if the format of these standardized tests is conducive to developing more comprehensive soft skills in students which caters to the needs of an ever-evolving job market. This may help us evaluate if these standardized tests accurately correspond to long-term professional success and further allow the policy makers and test makers to re-evaluate the format and their approach to these tests. Alternatively, exploring other indicators of student’s success might make me feel more confident in my desire to avoid using standardized tests, but with time one must accept their concurrent effectiveness as a necessary benchmark for assessment.
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