Test Scores Revisited: Fragment of a Picture
William C. Daly · 1994
The dramatic dawn of the space age four decades ago, sparked by Sputnik, led to intensive activity in the area of formal standardized testing. Our schools were and still are looking for potential leaders and scientists, for children and adolescents who show promise in their early years. Our schools continue to be interested in determining the needs of all school children, whether they are average, below average or superior in intelligence. Routine testing programs have been set up in local communities to evaluate thousands of pupils. For the most part, these programs are positive and practical. The results of such programs present a picture of development and sometimes regression of children in their formative years. The pupil's test scores, past and present, together with other information can be extremely valuable to the educator who is trying to help the student resolve an academic or an adjustment problem. Rumbles of Dissatisfaction: Testing programs are currently widespread, not only in the public schools through 12th grade, but at all levels of education. Children and young people are being given aptitude tests, intelligence tests, achievement tests, college board examinations and vocational tests. What is occurring at this time? What is the natural antithesis? Simply put, parents, educators and others are challenging testing programs. Some feel they are of no value at all. Others feel that too much emphasis has been placed on them. A considerable number of students have been refused college entrance, presumably on the basis of a test score. It has been charged, as well, that some elementary-school children have been labeled slow learners as the result of a test score. Other inequities, such as right to privacy and test bias, have been cited in professional journals and commercial magazines, and on radio and television shows. Some clarification of issues is due. Interpreting the Test Score The core of the problem does not lie with the test or testing programs as they have developed in the schools of this country. The key, lies in the use of the scores. Individuals sometimes misuse scores. Consequently, pupils are misclassified, misplaced or misguided. How does this happen? Some educators put faith only in the test score and give consideration to little else. Sometimes the score becomes the formula for guiding pupils and for structuring school programs. To many schoolmen, the score represents a scientific index that automatically classifies, diagnoses and makes predictions regarding the pupil in terms of thousands of youngsters of the same age. The prime difficulty here revolves around the fallacy of mono-symptomatic diagnosis. In other words, diagnosis, classification, or predictions for any given pupil are based on one symptom only. The pupil is - or is not - placed in a special class for the retarded on the basis of one symptom only - the test score. The pupil is or is not retained in 3rd grade on the basis of one symptom only - the test score. It is as if a teacher declared that a child was retarded because his schoolwork was poor. It is as if a pupil was classified as a slow learner because of his inattentiveness or his reticence or his monosyllabic responses in class. It is as if a physician decided that a patient had appendicitis on the basis of one symptom only, a fever of 102 degrees (4). Studying the Pattern Sound pupil evaluation and hence placement, planning and guidance can be accomplished only through an approach that takes many symptoms into account (1). A test score reflects only one symptom or aspect of a highly complex human organism in a learning situation. This one aspect can be viewed and interpreted soundly only in relation to the total picture, which includes the child's scholastic record, his home environment, his developmental history, his classroom behavior, his health record, his past performance on similar standardized tests and teachers reports and observations. …