I Have Mixed Emotions About Standardized Tests

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  There are many different types of standardized tests and diverse controversial opinions about standardized tests. Typically, public schools use their standardized tests for funding while private schools use them to assess each student's academic and functional skills. For example, during my time of doing my Field Experience at the Bryn Athyn Church School in Bryn Athyn, PA, my third graders took the Iowa Assessments back in April. The third graders are assessed on the following skills when taking the Iowa Assessment: Vocabulary, Reading Comprehension, Spelling, Capitalization, Punctuation, Usage and Expression, Math Concepts and Estimation, Math Problem Solving and Data Interpretation, Math Computation, Social Studies, Maps and Diagrams, Reference Materials, Word Analysis, and Listening. In addition, when I was in first through third grade, my peers and I had to take the Terra Nova exams. When I moved to Murray Avenue School, which is part of the Lower Moreland Township School District in Huntingdon Valley, PA, for fourth through eighth grade, my peers and I had to take the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) exams. When I was in high school at Lower Moreland High School, my peers and I had to take the Keystone exams. Many schools tend to have faculty meetings at the end of the school year to discuss the test scores or the scores are submitted to other schools in the same state or other states for evaluation by other teachers.

    In my opinion, I see many pros and cons of standardized tests. To elaborate more, while standardized tests can be useful in some ways, they should not used to measure any students as a whole. For example, academically gifted students tend to easily succeed on standardized tests. However, this is only a "snapshot" of their strengths and every person has strengths and areas of improvement. Some students may receive low scores on math while they also succeed in other areas, such as being artistically gifted or a highly skilled writer. I have also observed that standardized tests tend to be very stressful for the majority of society's young learners in general. This is because children are required to memorize a large amount of information. I have observed that sometimes there are exactly, close to, or more than one hundred questions on standardized tests. This amount of information is typically extremely difficult for anyone to memorize just to receive a passing score. This is especially true when taking into consideration that young children's frontal cortex as part of their brain development is not fully developed yet. Anyone, especially in this stage of development, has a limited memory. For students who struggle with poor working memory (WM) as part of disabilities, memorization is very hard for them even when they spend numerous hours of studying. Study guides, extended time, and reduced distraction environments tend to be very helpful academic accommodations for this diverse community of learners for the most part. While there are times that students in the disability community who struggle with poor WM are capable of passing tests with these supports, there are many times that they also receive low test scores despite utilizing these supports.

    Typically, students are also not the same person that they usually are when taking tests as compared to when they are not taking tests. This is because they are so self-conscious about what will happen if they forget too many correct answers and when they are not taking tests, they do not need to worry about this. Students of all ages and mindsets also tend to experience insecurity about their scores in comparison to their peers' scores.

    In addition, I have also observed that some standardized tests provide questions about concepts that students of all abilities have never learned before. For example, I remember seeing math concepts that I had never learned before in the math section of standardized tests in my pre-college education. It is extremely difficult for any student to be able to correctly answer any academic questions about any topics that they have never learned before.

    While I do have many concerns about standardized tests, I would also like to make a point to acknowledge that this form of assessments can help to evaluate students' strengths and developmental concerns. This helps to determine the support needs of students of all abilities. The scores of struggling students, especially who have Tier 2 and Tier 3 level support needs, can determine their eligibility for related services, Individualized Education Plans (IEP), and/or 504 Plans. Scores of gifted students can also show evidence of their eligibility for Gifted Individualized Education Plans (GIEP). Their scores can also show evidence of their struggles. As a student myself, I remember scores showing my strengths and what developmental areas that I needed extra support in. However, I also remember being very stressed about tests and I still experience this stress when taking tests in college.

    As part of my professional philosophy as a teacher, I always acknowledge the fact that test scores do not determine any students' capabilities as a whole. All students should be told to try their best when taking any tests. They should also be reassured that everyone has different strengths to reduce their insecurity about potential low scores. Overall, it is important for all educators to recognize that every student learns differently just like every person is different.

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