Standardized Tests: Important or Irrelevant?

In our lifetime, we have all taken some form of a standardized test. The main question I want to go into is why are they so important? I remember taking them as early as first grade and every year thereafter. I always wondered why teachers placed great emphasis on them and it wasn’t until I was preparing to take my HSPT and eventually my SAT to really understand why. Standardized tests, like the SOLs in Virginia, are used as a benchmark to ensure students are on grade level with their learning. These types of tests can also serve as an informal evaluation for teachers. For those reasons, these tests are high stakes.

To further your education, you need to take a standardized entrance exam like the SAT or ACT. It is believed that the better you do on these tests, the more successful you will be in college and after. You may then ask how do these high stakes tests determine success? Well, they really don’t. I know off of personal experience students who score highly on these exams and drop out of college. Those of us who were scored mediocre still made it through. With the big range in actual success, why are schools still requiring this assessment? While the SAT and ACT are a requirement, it’s not usually the only basis for college acceptance. You still need to get good grades and be involved. However, my opinion is that students go above and beyond now therefore colleges need to see something like a standardized test to differentiate applicants.

In an education setting and not necessarily an entrance exam, I think standardized tests can be useful IF the data is used improve learning. As a teacher, I know I can’t disregard the standardized tests so I will help my students develop the necessary test-taking skills for them. A lot of the questions are worded in a confusing way or in a different format, so I would want to preview these with my students by doing practice tests. 

When I was younger, I performed well on standardized tests. It could have  been a mindset from my own teachers labeling me as smart so I was confident. In high school, I was surrounded by a lot of smart students so I think my self-confident deflated. While these tests were mixed between multiple choice and short response, I actually performed better when I had to fill in the blanks and construct written responses. It properly assessed what I knew and didn’t know. I think nowadays students want immediate gratification so they don’t like those types of tests, but I think assessments that require short responses and essays are crucial for teachers to provide productive feedback to help enhance a student’s learning. Teaching and assessments go hand-in-hand because you need to be able to measure a student’s learning, but it’s finding a balance between which assessments match your teaching objective.