There are various standardized tests. For example, the TOEFL for English proficiency, or the SAT for admission to university. What are they good for? What are they not good for? How accurate are they? Are they a truly general indicator of proficiency or aptitude?
Interesting question Antonio and I'm sure there is no single answer. I've certainly taken my fair share of standardized tests (haven't we all?) and I've scored AP tests as well as taught students of varying abilities (indicated by these tests or otherwise).
The one thing I can do to answer you is to speak about my department and our placement system. We do not use a placement test but in stead, we use a statistical model which calculates a placement (or really anticipated success rate) using historical performance data from several indicators. For example, SAT / ACT is one of the indicators but we also use high school GPA and several other things. According to the model which takes into account several years of student performance in our own classes, the SAT / ACT is not a great indicator, but it is an indicator. High school GPA tends to outweigh the effect of SAT / ACT.
As for other tests, I would imagine a similar situation would occur. Personally, I've found AP tests to be generally good indicators of ability (both when I took them and when I scored them).
Dear Colton, I like your answer. It is what I would have imagined the outcome to be. It will be interesting to hear from others, especially those who have designed placement tests and have taught courses.
Very true, thank you Mahmood! Standardized tests (broadly speaking) are good at what they are designed to be. Nice detailed explanation.
Dear Mahmood,
Regarding accuracy of standardized tests (i.e., how well they measure a given student's proficiency or knowledge), There are 3 domains of students to consider: the beginner; the intermediate, and the advanced.
For the two extremes, namely beginners and advanced, standardized tests will accurately reflect their levels. For the intermediates, standardized tests may or may not reflect their levels.
The problem is that the universe of the subject matter can be quite large, and the test designer has to make some subjective value judgements as to which questions should be included in the test. So, a small subset of the possible questions appears on the test, or on one of a few versions of the test. Now the question is: how well will the limited knowledge of a given intermediate student match the test questions for a given standardized test?
If there is a very good match, the intermediate student may score even higher than his actual level.
If the match is fair to good, the student's score may accurately reflect his actual level.
If the match is poor, the student may score very much lower than his actual level.
My interpretation is that, assuming a given student's teachers are competent , the student's grades in classes is a much better indicator of a student's level. The reason being that, in each class, the student is being tested by the teacher over a more limited universe of topics(i.e., those covered by all the students in the class). So there is little question of a mismatch between the domain of what the student was exposed to versus the questions on the test.
Corollaries to my previous answer:
The efficacy of middle level students taking classes to prepare them to achieve higher scores on standardized tests implies that there is some value (to the students or their parents) in doing this.
This, in turn, implies that two students who in reality are at the same level can, and often do, score quite differently depending on whether or not they took such a special preparatory class.
This, in turn, encourages schools and teachers to "teach to the test."
And this, in turn, leads to emphasis on extrinsic learning, rather than intrinsic learning. (The former is rather superficial and easily forgotten; whereas, the latter is learning that will stay with the student for most, if not all, of his/her life.
if you teach just to effect the curricular educational production line's list of skills and are happy with that, then Standardized teaching and learning is for you. But it will destroy your students' learning futures for the 21st century.. I think you might find Susan R. Goldman's article 'Adolescent Literacy: learning and understanding content', The future of children, Vol.22, No.2, Fall 2012, p 86-110 informative and rewarding.
They are not good at measuring critical thinking and higher-order skills.
I'll be the critical voice in the pond: they are NOT good to account for the differences that there might be among schools and are often misused, especially in pre-college education, where they are usually used to compare schools (and kids) among schools - and thus, funding or de-funding them - instead than understanding progresses of a specific kid or a specific class. This also leads several times (and I include language tests in this) to "teaching and preparing kids for the test" instead than promoting more valuable education experiences, worrying about effective learning and working for the growth of the people in front of us. It can dehumanize learning and teaching.
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