Standardized Post 2

A typical standardized test in a classroom is summative because it's assessing every student on the same thing at the end of an instructional period. During a standardized test, teachers don't stop and ask questions to gauge the students' understanding. The standardized test is summative because it covers all of the material that was covered in class. It is especially evident that it's a summative assessment because it's presented in a formal way, where all students are quiet and the tests are all the same with multiple choice, fill in the blank, true/false questions.

The test may accurately assess the students who are taking it, based on information retention, understanding, etc. This means it reliable because it can measure the students in the same way. However, the test may not be valid for several reasons: the information presented can be group-specific, or offensive to one group, the wording of the item is unfamiliar to some cultural groups so it may not be understood well, and the scoring unfairly penalizes or favors one cultural answer over equally acceptable answers in other cultures. How is that valid if a student's cultural background affects their performance on a standardized test?

Standardized tests aren't really standardized. The tests aren't equitable to EVERY single student taking them. The tests have some sort of test bias because the standardized format of the tests have a built-in bias against some groups by some aspect of gender, ethnicity, race or socioeconomic status. Since the tests measure unobservable characteristics, such as intelligence or achievement rather than height or weight, there is no way to prove that the average differences are not actual differences in intelligence or achievement, but rather differences due to cultural test bias. The standardized test may imply different things for many different people, especially people of different socioeconomic or cultural backgrounds.