The Evolution of Standardized Testing and Its Divided Opinions
What is standardized testing? It is a type of test that is used to signify objective tests that include questions such as fill in the blank, multiple-choice, true/false, or short essay. All students take the same tests with the same questions so that the scores can be compared. Computers score most parts of these tests. People that have rubrics with guidelines on how to score the answers grade questions like fill in the blank and short essay answers. The results of these tests deliver two types of standardized test score interpretations, norm-referenced tests and criterion-referenced tests (Lurie, 2000). Norm-referenced tests is used to obtain percentile rankings for a group of test takers, and criterion-referenced is used in any form and provides absolute scores (Lurie, 2000). The earliest form of standardized testing comes from China (Fletcher, 2009). These types of tests were used to examine citizens that wanted government jobs (Fletcher, 2009). It was needed to test their familiarity with Confucian philosophy and poetry (Fletcher, 2009). Before the Industrial Revolution of the Western World, testing by essays was more preferred (Fletcher, 2009). After this period of time, standardized tests became an easier method to assess large numbers of students quickly because more kids were leaving farms and factories to attend school (Fletcher, 2009). It was not until World War I did the United States start implementing standardized testing (Lurie, 2000). In 1917, the Army Mental Test was created to designate recruits to certain jobs in the army (Lurie, 2000). However, many people disagreed with it because it did not test intelligence but instead “consumer and leisure culture” (Lurie, 2000, p. 502). Soon after this, the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) was created in 1926, and it was designed for college admissions to schools like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and other exclusive schools (Lurie, 2000). Today, the SAT is considered in admissions for more than
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