Candace Palacios June 04, 2012 WRD 104 Research Paper Are Standardized Tests a Good Way to Judge

a Students Academic Ability? Preparing for the ACT is a nerve wrecking experience. In 2009, I was a junior in high school spending my entire school year preparing for this one test that could determine where I will be able to go to college. On the day of the test, my stomach was filled with butterflies. I also got a cold the day before, so I had terrible symptoms: a major headache, a runny nose, and a cough that would never go away. I had a feeling that these four hours were going to be a nightmare; that I would focus more on not getting any germs on my scantron, rather than focus on answering the question correctly. When I got my results, I received a 22, and that is pretty average for a person who is doing exceptionally well in high school. My GPA was a 4.2, and I graduated at the top 25% of my class. Does that mean that I am not ready for college just because I received an average (poor) score on the ACT? There are a lot of students who are in my situation. Students can get sick and have anxiety issues before the big exam. Low-income students do not have the ability to pay for test preparation or tutoring like the wealthier students. (Syverson, 2007, p. 60) Some students cheat on standardized tests! A district attorneys office from the Nassau County in New York charged 20 teenagers from five high schools last fall for paying others to take the exam for them. Five students were paid between five hundred to over three thousand dollars to take the test for the students, while the other fifteen paid students to have them take their test. There might be over 50 students that are involved in this county alone (Anderson, 2012). Other kids are getting extended time to take the ACT when they do not need it. According to Moore (2010), a 2000 audit of test takers in California show that are an unusual number of white, affluent students receiving accommodations like extra time on tests. This brings a lot of suspicion for students
Comment [DPU2]: a poor Comment [DPU3]: (Add this rhetorical question) Is this an accurate reflection on how I will do in college? Comment [DPU1]: Replace with poor

Candace Palacios June 04, 2012 WRD 104 Research Paper who might not have a disability or exaggerated that disability. Are these standardized tests really the best way to determine a students academic ability? Before the SAT and the ACT were created by The College Board, each university had to create their own placement exam for admitting students into their institution. The SAT (which stood for The Scholastic Aptitude Test at the time), was created in 1926 to allow talented students to apply for multiple schools with just one test. This test is to check a students higher order reasoning skills. The ACT (The American College Testing Program) was created in 1959 because of individuals who were a part of the Iowa Testing Programs believed that the SAT was more involved with the elite schools in the east coast. Unlike the SAT, the ACT can assess whether or not the student mastered a high school curriculum. The ACT was accepted mainly in schools in the Midwest, but now the SAT and the ACT is accepted by every college in the nation. Even though these tests are different, both have the same concept: to see if a student is ready to attend college (Syverson, 2007, p. 56 -57). Some say that standardized testing is a fair way to determine a students academic ability. In the article Test Data Allow Better Decisions, Gaston Caperton from U.S. News & World Report discusses why colleges use the SAT as a tool to admit students into colleges and universities. He does this by first addressing the fact that a lot of people do disagree that standardized tests should not be a tool, but then lists all of the pros of having such tests. He tries to shed light to the people who do not think that standardized tests are reliable, and it is a reminder to the readers why these tests are here in the first place. While combining other data that is needed to make a decision, the SAT has been proven to have reliability, validity, and a fair data tool for college admissions. All research supports it. Colleges and universities also believe
Comment [DPU6]: Prepared sounds better. Comment [DPU4]: Given the information, are Comment [DPU5]: Italicize!

Candace Palacios June 04, 2012 WRD 104 Research Paper that the SAT is a really good tool to measure college readiness (Caperton, 2009). On the ACTs website, it is mentioned that high school students should take the ACT because it is a test based on what the student is learning in high school. This means that every day that you are in school, you are preparing for the ACT. The more you pay attention and work hard, then you will do better on the ACT (Why, 2012). If these standardized tests show if a student is ready for college and is about the content they learn in high school, then why do others think that such a test is unreliable?

A reason why people are against standardized testing is because there are many other outside factors that can hinder them from getting the results they desire Test preparation can be very stressful. In the article, Teachers say the most interesting things An alternative View of Testing, Buck, Ritter, Jensen, and Rose report how some teachers feel about standardized testing. They do this by interviewing a lot of teachers days after the testing season is over, just to hear their responses pertaining to the subject. Immediately after the interview commences, the forty two teachers they interviewed started to complain about how stressful these tests are. They also add in quotes from others about their opinions on standardized testing, such as President Barack Obama. He agreed with the teachers who were criticizing, by stating on his change.gov website that teachers should not be forced to spend the academic year preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests (Buck et al., 2010). There have been a lot of people who are not content with standardized testing as a way to admit students into college. In the article The Role of Standardized Tests in College Admissions: Test-Optional Admissions, Syverson not only discusses the history of the ACT and the SAT, he also mentions why people are dissatisfied with colleges using standardized tests as a tool for admissions. There are individuals who argue that
Comment [DPU7]: Everyone desires a really good score. Replace with accurate results.

Candace Palacios June 04, 2012 WRD 104 Research Paper standardized testing limits the importance of high school transcripts for getting into college and in predicting the likelihood of success while in college. High school transcripts are losing so much value because now, people more time and effort into preparing students for these tests. Earlier, students did not prepare much when getting ready to take the SAT or the ACT, but now that these tests are perceived as more important, the test-prep industry grew to be more important as well (Syverston, 2007, p. 59).

Another reason why others are against the use of standardized testing is because it is believed that the testing is biased. Professionals still believe they disadvantage students of color and those less affluent or less sophisticated who are the first in their family to attend college (Syverston, 2007, p. 59). Caperton disagrees with that claim and states that there is research that clearly shows that these tests (specifically, The SAT) are not biased against any minorities. The College Board has a mission that they are very serious about, and that mission is to connect students to college success, with a commitment to excellence and equity (2009). Although Caperton does not state in his article what research is out there that proves his claim, he is one of the people that believe that there is no bias pertaining to the SAT. There has been a solution to whether or not the tests are biased, or if they give transcripts less value than the ACT. This solution is called the Test-Optional Program.

Test-Optional Programs are when colleges and universities decided to not have the ACT or SAT as a requirement to submit for the admission process. Students have the option of submitting their test scores if they would like to, but it will not be counted against them if they choose not to. In the article DePaul admits first group of students under Test-Optional Pilot Program, the author discusses how DePaul University admitted students who had the option to

Candace Palacios June 04, 2012 WRD 104 Research Paper submit their test scores for the first time this year. The purpose of this article is to show how even though students choose not to submit their test scores; they still get admitted into colleges because of their high school GPA. The article has an intended audience for faculty and staff members at DePaul University, but parents can be the audience for this article as well. About 11, 150 students that were admitted to DePauls Class of 2016 applied as test optional, and the freshman class will have about 75 test-optional students out of 2,450. This is a Pilot Program, so the admissions department is going to try the Test-Optional Program for the next four years, and see how it went. Thirty five out of the top one hundred liberal arts colleges in the U.S. News & World Report rankings decided to do the Test-Optional Program, such as Bates College, Lawrence University, and Wake Forest University (p. 1-2). Although, the author got their information from the U.S. News & World Report rankings, it is very ironic that a journalist from that same source is in favor of keeping standardized tests. Caperton (2009) contests the idea of having test-optional programs because he thinks that it is obvious that people who do well on the tests will submit their scores while others will not. He believes that you cannot depend on just a persons grade point average. The schools who decided to add a Test-Optional Program are just doing this for national status, and not for the concern of students.
Comment [DPU8]: There is a space here

When I took the ACT, I was very upset with my results. I felt that with the score that I received, I was not going to get into any colleges I wanted to attend except my safety school. These standardized tests did not show off my academic ability as well as my transcript did., and I believe that transcripts are the best way of seeing how well a person did in high school, andto see if they are ready prepared to attend college. You can see what classes the student took throughout their years in high school, what level those classes were, and their grades. My

Candace Palacios June 04, 2012 WRD 104 Research Paper transcript and my grade point average should be considered more than just one test. I worked hard for those grades that I earned, and they should not be put to waste. It is very interesting how Caperton believes that focusing on just a students GPA is not the best thing, and that colleges are just adding this Test-Optional Program just to have national status. Associate Vice President for policy and planning in Enrollment Management and Marketing Jon Boeckenstedt from DePaul University believes the opposite. In DePauls faculty newspaper, he states that There is no study refuting the strength of the high school GPA in a rigorous curriculum as the single best indicator of a students eventual college performance. Caperton also believes that these TestOptional Programs should not exist because students who do well on the standardized tests will submit their scores, while those who did poorly will not. Of course that is what is going to happen! Why would I want to send in my test scores, when I know I did poorly, and when it could ruin my chances of getting into the school of my choosing? He claims that there is a lot of research pertaining to his argument, but where is the research? To me, it seems like Caperton is blindly defending a concept that may become obsolete in the future.

Even though there are more colleges who are trying the Test-Optional Program, colleges are there is some talk of planning on creating another standardized test to see how well much their current undergraduate students are doing in college. Richard Prez-Peas article Trying to Find a Measure for How Well Colleges Do discusses a new method to measure how students improve their academic ability while they are in college. He does this by talking about the No Child Left Behind law, and how colleges are trying to use pieces of that concept to incorporate standardized tests for how well their students are doing. Incoming freshman will take this multiple choice test as a starting point, and seniors will take an exit test to see how much they

Candace Palacios June 04, 2012 WRD 104 Research Paper have improved on their critical thinking skills. If there are high results, then colleges will post those scores to make their school look better than others (Prez-Pea, 2012). How will they judge a persons critical thinking with a multiple choice test? Will a critical thinking test really determine if students are doing well as a college student?

Candace Palacios June 04, 2012 WRD 104 Research Paper Works Cited Anderson, J. (2012). SAT and ACT to tighten rules after cheating scandal. The New York Times. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/28/education/after-cheating-scandalsat-and-act-will-tighten-security.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all Buck, S., Ritter, G.W., Jensen, N.C., & Rose, C.P. (2010). Teachers say the most interesting things An alternative view of testing. Phi Delta Kappan, 91(6), 50-54. Caperton, G. (2009). Test data allow better decisions. U.S. News & World Report, 146(8), 24. DePaul admits first group of students under Test-Optional Pilot Program. (2012). DePaul University Newsline, 45(8), 1-2. Prez-Pea, R. (2012). Trying to find a measure for how well colleges do. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/education/trying-to-find-a-measurefor-how-well-colleges-do.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all Sullivan Moore, A. (2010). Accommodations angst. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/education/edlife/07strategy-t.html?_r=1 Syverson, S. (2007). The role of standardized tests in college admissions: Test-Optional admissions. New Directions For Student Services, (118), 55-70. Why take the ACT?. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.actstudent.org/faq/answers/why.html