CollegeSurfing Insider: After years of enduring standardized tests, from elementary school (it starts in 3rd grade in New York) all the way through high school and then college entrance exams, most students breathe a sigh of relief at the lack of standardized testing at the undergraduate level. Unless you’re going to grad school or entering a credentialed profession, your college admission is a chance to say goodbye to those dreaded, broad-stroke assessments.Not so fast.
7 comments:
Even though standardized tests were never a nightmare for me, having more of them isn't something i'd ever ask for. In the context of college, I don't think it makes sense at all to incorporate something like this-the current educational philosophy in the US suggests that college is the time to be finding out what you're good at (if you don't already know) and starting to become specialized. Therefore, unless we were to implement some kind of federal guidelines for how to define and assess each major/discipline (PLEASE DON'T), then one test can't possibly hit the strengths one expects from mathematicians and those one wants in creative writers. The test here speaks of more basic skills such as problem-solving and recognition, but these can all be better taught at the high school level and then augmented in a way directly relevant to one's discipline in college. Finally, I feel that there are sufficient ways to measure college students' performances (how many get a job within a year of graduating, how many make it through 4 years, etc) without having to add this component of success measurement (an idea that is arguably stupid within itself)
The goal behind implementing standardized testing in colleges is a noble one, however there are better ways of achieving this goal. Even testing broad skillsets such as critical thinking and problem solving would produce skewed results. For some, and undergraduate education is merely a jumping off point: the first step toward a graduate degree. But for many others, ourselves included, college provides an opportunity to receive a specialized education geared toward a specific career. Standardized testing would unsuccessfully represent colleges because many students are not receiving a “standard” education, if such a thing even exists. As Becca mentioned, there are much better ways to analyze the effectiveness of a college education. Dropout rates are a decent indicator of student satisfaction, though documenting and sharing the exact reasons why students chose to drop out or transfer to another school could increase the effectiveness of this statistic. In my opinion, the best way to measure the quality of a college education is to look at where students go after they graduate. Most colleges provide some sort of statistic about success after graduation, but these statistics could be much more comprehensive. Instead of merely measuring whether or not graduates get a job, they should also provide information on what type of job it is, if the graduate is happy with it, and if it is in the field they studied in college. It is also important to provide broad statistics of all graduates, instead of the outrageous success stories of only one or two.
Like Becca and Margaret, I don't think that standardized tests would produce particularly meaningful results in college. For one thing, we are all taking different classes and are therefore learning and improving on different skills at different times. Even within a single major no two students are taking exactly the same courses when you factor in electives and variations of required classes. Therefore standardized test would have to be very general in order to encompass topics that all students have come across in their courses. On another note I don't think that tests are the best way to track what a single student is getting out of a college, let alone what a whole student body is getting out of a college. People grow in different ways in college and that growth varies widely depending on the skills students come into a school with and the specific skills that they pursue while at the school. Also, there is more to be learned in college than what can show up on paper and be tested with multiple choice questions. I found that many measurements of a college's effect on students other than test scores were useful to me when applying: measurements such as post-college employment statistics, student opinions, how ready professionals think students are after attending the college, etc. I understand the intention behind wanting to implement standardized tests, but I don't think they have much value as a measure of what students get out of attending a certain college.
Why would that ever be necessary? Standardized tests are fine to track elementary and secondary education and improvement, but it makes pretty much no sense in college. After someone has successfully graduated high school, they should have all of the necessary skills in core subjects (English, History, Math, and Science) that have been deemed essential. The SAT and ACT are only important for college applications and absolutely nothing else at all. So why in college? Of course tests for graduate programs make sense, but it's impossible to just track general improvement in college since everyone's individual track is so unique. Everything learned beyond high school is to reach personal goals and self-fulfillment and what is essential has already learned. Student's know their own improvement from their classes. I just don't see how it could be useful or practical. It seems impossible to even formulate.
Like everyone else, I don't think that standardized tests would produce meaningful results. I actually think it might be detrimental to the college. High School teachers I know have complained about standardized tests for several reasons. They can be detrimental to the class, as the teacher begins teaching to the test, rather than teaching the subject they way they should/want to. Also, everyone learns differently, and not everything that people learn can be accurately represented in a test. I am honestly not sure that standardized tests are good for high schools, let alone colleges.
I think Shannon makes a good point with the fact that people have different areas of study. Stick an art student in a standardized test, that student won't be able to show, for the most part, their improvement. If officials want to measure colleges against each other, I would suggest comparing senior projects/papers/whatever that college and senior does to prove they've earned that degree. It will be arbitrary, but better takes into account the variety of majors, learning methods, etc.
That being said, I don't give a crap if CMU makes me take a standardized test, as long as they're the same format as high school; that is; I don't need to worry about it for passing a class or my GPA.
Where would Socrates come down in this argument? I would gather that the greatest mind in western philosophy would be nonplused with this concept. I have had experience with standardized testing in our modern public school system. Standardized tests are used to gage teacher proficiency and more importantly they are used as a device to allocate funding. If you want to use this system with public universities you will end up with a collegiate level of the same night mare. I think that standardized testing is a silly notion. Sure it is fitting for specialized professions (ie. lawyers, nurses) for accreditation proposes. As a general tally board is seems ludicrous. A general knowledge of courses, was that not called high school?
Post a Comment