A typical standardized test ia summative formal test. The information asked on a standardized test gives teachers feed back on how the student is progressing in the class. A standardized test's purpose is to see the school, and teacher's influence on the students' work, and if they are learning the material that the state expects them too. It is also a formal test because students are encouraged to prepare for it, and given time to practice for these types of tests.
A state test can be reliable but have poor validity because state tests are inconsistent between states. A passing score could be passing in one state and failing in another. Also, some test questions, especially in younger students, will be based off of knowledge learned before school was given, and therefore, the test would be testing background characteristics rather than what the teacher has taught them. Also, mean score differences is biased against high-poverty schools and minority students. Therefore, a test can be reliable in the fact that it will test students on knowledge that a certain age group should know, but it will not be valid if the student is at a lower reading level than one should be in the grade they are receiving the test in
Standardized tests are not standardized to students who live in poverty. Students may do poor on their standardized test because of poor nutrition, less learning outside school due to lower parental education, lack of school readiness resources, high rate of moving from one school to another and lower-quality instruction at schools in low income school districts.
I agree that standardized tests are not equitable to students in poverty. I wonder how states could make them more equitable... such as providing a breakfast at school or free after school educational programming.
ReplyDeleteI thought about societal differences in the individual questions as well, such as references to cultural norms that students of other nationalities might not be familiar with.
ReplyDeleteI thought that your view on why standardized tests are not standard was very interesting. I didn't even think of it from a nutritional point of view. I simply thought that schools in poverty-stricken areas had less resources; therefore, they perform lower on standardized tests. This was a very interesting point, and I'm glad you brought it to my attention.
ReplyDeleteI like how you point out the issues of validity here--both the inconsistency between state assessments and how an assessment might actually be assessing more than the content that is targeted (prior knowledge learned at home). Another student mentioned that the assessment might actually be testing content (like math) AND language comprehension, because someone from a Spanish speaking home might need to work hard to understand mathematical word problems. It's great that you're reflecting on these now!
ReplyDelete