This post was mentioned on Twitter by kriley19: Joanne Jacobs: Not so standardized tests http://bit.ly/4AxfS4 Full http://bit.ly/66fSNs...

And timing, well I think non-timed tests are cruel, conscientious students can drive themselves nuts checking and re-checking questions, reluctant to ever finish.

I am not sure what you mean about so many types of learning and these tests only cater to one. What the tests measure is what was learnt, and what wasn’t, surely? Not how it was learnt.

As for panicking over worrying about not getting through all the questions, why is this something that should never happen to a student? Aren’t we stronger if we confront our fears and learn how to deal with panic? One of my friends at high school was so terrified at having to give a speech during English class that she was crying during it, but she didn’t run away and hide, and now she’s getting the odd acting job. I had a summer job once at a secure unit for brain-injured people and got attacked a few times, and through this I learnt what I am like when the adrenaline hits, and when it goes, which was very useful when copying with my brother having a bad accident later in life when I had to hand over my work commitments while internally panicking about his life.

I am not sure what it means for test questions to be worded so as not to be biased about race. Test questions should not be written in a way that racially, or sexually, or etc insults any one. Test questions are often going to be culturally-biased, eg most reading tests given in English-speaking countries measure the ability to read English and use the Roman alphabet but I don’t think anyone could pass a non-culturally-biased reading test. But the evidence seems pretty clear that a normal baby of any race can learn any language so I don’t see how reading tests are biased based on race.

I have graded New York State English Regents exams for many years:

Scores obtained are usually higher than the actual level students perform at, particularly in the middle three quintiles.

Inter-rater reliability is shaky, although ours is not quite as poor as palisadesk reports.

It would be an understatement to say that the test was custom made for political manipulation. To be honest, the results are corrupted so smoothly in so many ways that I have lost any faith I ever had in evaluations of schools and programs, based on standardized test results.

Zeev’s observations seem not to be true here, since our staff has consistently observed that the scores obtained are usually higher than the actual level the students perform at. Having been involved in the grading, I can see how the rubrics used can be constructed so that a weak performance will be graded higher than it deserves. Inter-rater reliability is only about .6, apparently, on this kind of open-response test.

These tests are very expensive to produce (every year all the items are new) and to grade, since it is done manually. I am not convinced the results justify the expense, but I can see how they are easier to manipulate for political purposes.

To reduce the risk of the marking being biased, you only put a number on your exam answer booklets, not your name, and the papers were sent to different parts of the country to be marked.

Writing is somewhat different and rather unique in academic learning and indeed one needs actually to write to assess it in full. Somewhat similar to performing arts or sports. But this is not true with almost any other academic skill.

BTW — open ended questions are very helpful in classroom (formative) assessment. Just not in a summative one.

On the other hand, the SAT writing test, for example, doesn’t seem to be a very good way of testing writing. But Joanne is right– grading might not be precise, but probably there are few cases where the graders can’t decide whether the student is a totally incapable writer or a skilled writer.