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A new study makes it clear what growth in standardized test performance doesn’t buy us: cognitive ability.
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Scooped by Beth Dichter |
Scoop.it!
Beth Dichter's insight:
Today we have students taking more and more standardized tests. This post shares information on "standardized test scores (Math and English language arts) and cognitive ability (working memory, processing speed, and abstract reasoning)" from ~1400 students 8th grade students in Boston (schools include traditional, exam and charter).
The question I would ask is why are we focused on standardized tests? Is this the primary way we should assess our students? Do standardized tests become critical thinkers, creative thinkers? This list could go on.
The information in this post may surprise you and there are links to the original paper and supplement.
I am concerned about the massive growth of standardized test as a tool to motivate learning and improvement in education. These also even seem to be an intimidation tool used against staff and school systems these days far more than an formative evaluation tool. The best evaluations for both formative and summative are by far real life performance based and the real process is always iterative and ongoing. That is everything in learning is iterative with exception of life and death training that must be passed by a 100% success standard and then maintained at that.
Are standardized test a distraction from the sometimes messy nature of real learning and curiosity which causes people to want to learn something? Are we taking the valuable lessons of trial and error corrections totally out of the learning equation for fear of failure when everything hangs on a standardized test passing score?