Standardized Testing
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In
teaching 5 sections of grade 6, at the end of every chapter, I take a test that
is common to all students. It is for 1 hour and the rubric to measure their
grades is also the same. End of it I compare performances of different
sections. The test is ‘Standardized’.
Standardized Test: A form of test where all test takers answer
the same questions in the same way. The test is scored in a manner that is
“standard”. The chief purpose is to compare the relative performance of
individual students or groups of students. They can include any type of
questions. They can be pen and paper or use a computer.
Pros
and Cons of using Standardized Tests
The
pros of Standardized Testing are as follows.
·
It is an “Assessment for accountability”
(UNESCO, 2015, p.7). There are
certain objectives with which one starts a school year and Standardized Test is
a tool to evaluate the outcome and that holds the imparters of education
accountable.
·
The
“standardized format, coupled with computerized scoring, reduces the
potential for favouritism, bias, or subjective evaluations.” (Standardized Test., 2015, para. 3).
·
They can be
used for a variety of purposes, such as to decide if a student should be in
special needs care, aptitude tests or college admission tests or determine if
students have achieved a certain level of competency in the required area.
·
They can
serve as a check to see if the learning objectives are met or not.
The
cons of using Standardized Testing are as follows.
· Let’s
go back to my own example of grade 6 testing of all 5 sections. The data that I
get at the end in the form of marks is used by the school head to label the
sections as ‘weak, average or bright’. This is emotionally damaging to the
students.
· Although
Standardized Tests are marked as free from subjectivity, “Test Bias” (Partnership, 2015) is a human
reality that we cannot escape from.
· Holding
a school or teachers accountable for learning gaps can be very stressful and
misused by authorities.
· They
are discriminatory against the outliers, such as students of different culture
or with special needs.
· The
portion of educational achievement that they measure is very less. If education
is preparation for life, standard tests measure very minimal part of it. The
teachers would end up teaching for the test instead of using best practices.
Final
Thoughts
Every
year, in my country, at the end of grades 10 and 12, the students of the whole
country, appear for central examinations. Irrespective of who they are and what
their level of expertise in a subject is, everyone writes the same exam, is
graded based on the same rubric and the final grades or marks are given as per
the same mark scheme.
The
previous government, before 2019, abolished exams at grade 10 and brought in “CCE
or Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation” (CCE Aims and Objectives, 2019). A
very comprehensive manual was prepared by the curriculum policy makers listing
in detail the philosophy and practice. In my opinion, it was a brilliant
document. It created a lot of changes in the society.
The positive changes
were:
· Student
suicide rate dropped as the stress of learning reduced.
· A
number of schools moved from being completely conventional to experimental and
creative.
· Teachers
learnt to be creative as national lever professional development started.
However, there were
difficulties too:
· The
grade 12 standardized exam was not abolished. But students who entered grade 11
after CCE for grades 1 to 10 were not prepared enough academically.
· Students
were stress free, however there was no way of measuring how they were growing.
· The
teachers had to conduct multiple formative assessments and write descriptive
reports. This had to be done by hand as all teachers did not have access to
technology. This increased their burden. In a nutshell, while students
blossomed, the teachers suffered.
Hence
the first thing that the present government did, in 2019, was to abolish CCE
and return to exams in grade 10. The current situation is that we have (a) standardized
examinations at the end of grades 10 and 12; (b) no examinations at the primary
level, (c) and middle school is left for the individual schools to decide.
I
believe instead of abolishing CCE, the new government could have set up a
committee of educators to watch over the whole cycle of (a) setting objectives,
(b) implementing objectives, (c) assessing outcomes and (d) redefine
objectives; using “Tyler’s Objectives-Centred model” (Okyere, n.d., p.6) of
curriculum evaluation.
Standardized
Testing would have helped in evaluating the whole model year after year and
modify it as required. That would have been a middle path, that could have been
made a standard model for the country’s public education network. As of now,
the vigilance for students committing suicide after the Standardized
Examinations of grades 10 and 12 has returned. There is regular police patrol
placed on the bridge of Yamuna River in New Delhi during and post the
examination season.
CCE aims and objectives. (2019, February 21). Retrieved from
https://www.educationworld.in/cce-aims-and-objectives/.
Okyere. P.
(n.d.) Curriculum Evaluation Models. Pp. 1-16. Retrieved from
https://www.academia.edu/9846526/CURRICULUM_EVALUATION_MODELS
Standardized Test. (2015). Retrieved from
https://apastyle.apa.org/learn/faqs/cite-website-material.
Partnership,
G. S. (2015, May 22). Test Bias. Retrieved from https://www.edglossary.org/test-bias/.
UNESCO
(2015). Student Learning Assessment and the Curriculum: Issues and Implications
for Policy, Design, and
Implementation. Current and Critical Issues in the
Curriculum and Learning. Pp. 1-29. Retrieved
from
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