(continued)
One test, or even a series of tests, should not be used alone to determine a student’s grade placement or course grade or a curriculum’s value.
Proper Uses
Standardized achievement tests can show students’ knowledge of facts, skills and concepts common to the grade tested; year-to-year academic development (more accurate over extended periods); student academic strengths and weaknesses (in individuals to a limited degree); students’ higher-order thinking skills, although in a limited way; and where investigation into such specifics as methods and effectiveness of curriculum.
A good test is a good tool for helping assess a student’s progress. But it is only a tool, an indication—not the final word. Most parents wouldn’t want a real estate agent to let them buy a house based on the address; and informed parents really won’t want to make choices about education based only on test scores.
Explaining and Applying Test Information
When standardized test scores are returned, they create a certain amount of excitement. It is good to get some consensus in understanding the purpose and interpretation of tests before the results come back.
But even if that preemptive help cannot be arranged, explanations and questions from teachers and administrators along the way can clarify the results and make them more useful. For example, if a student scores in the 38th percentile in math problem-solving skills at the sixth grade level, that score by no means indicates that ``the student is just bad in math and will always have to work extra hard in that area.’’
Rather, you can explain, it means that the student on that particular day scored in approximately the 38th percentile in math problem-solving skills among all sixth graders who took the test. Then pose a series of questions that will help put the score into perspective for both you and the student and his parents such as these, for example:
- What should we expect from this student based on his quantitative thinking skills?
- Should we emphasize visualization and understanding more, rather than focusing on drill and memorization?
- Does the student get enough practice in problem solving?
Despite what the news media and some politicians would have us think, test scores cannot tell us whether all is well (or not well) with a student, a school, materials, or teaching methods. Test scores do not indicate whether children are learning to think from God’s point of view or whether they enjoy what they are doing and are starting on the path of lifelong learning. And tests cannot tell the overall story of how a child’s experience in school is preparing him for life. Such results—the results that matter most—must be evaluated by parents and teachers along the way, using a multitude of tools, of which a standardized test score is only one.
* For a thorough review of tests and their uses, James Deuink’s Proper Use of Standardized Tests is a valuable resource (available through BJU Press).