Do you believe that standardized testing is beneficial for students? - General

Many have questioned the use of standardized testing for students. My question is: Are they necessary? I personally believe that they do have some value. Although they don't affect a students grade, it still challenges them and reviews what they learned over the school year. It also lets the parents know how well their child is doing in school.

I think it degrades education as teachers begin teaching to pass the test instead of teaching to educate the child. I think a big problem with it is the direct tie to funding with how good test grades are.

I think it's a good thing. It provides a good indicator of relative student performance, and ensures that students are being taught the same curriculum across the state. I know there's that image that floats around the internet where it's a bunch of animals all told to climb a tree, and the only animal there that can do it is the monkey, but it overly simplifies standardised testing. For my final senior school exams, students with any kind of handicap were given access to provisions such as breaks within the test, extra time, or having someone read out the questions and write the answers for the student. Everyone in my school also got a bonus 4% added to the final combined mark because of the region that we lived in.

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;42339497]I think it degrades education as teachers begin teaching to pass the test instead of teaching to educate the child. I think a big problem with it is the direct tie to funding with how good test grades are.[/QUOTE] Isn't the point of the test so that if you pass the test then you have properly learned the material? It seems your argument would better apply to making a better test then getting rid of it.

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;42339497]I think it degrades education as teachers begin teaching to pass the test instead of teaching to educate the child. I think a big problem with it is the direct tie to funding with how good test grades are.[/QUOTE] As sgman said, teaching students to pass the tests means teaching them the curriculum that is being tested, and if the students are passing those tests than they have obviously studied the curriculum. It's kind of hilarious how so far the only people I have witnessed using your argument are people who don't put the effort in to studying.

It's pretty difficult to accurately asses one's knowledge of something through testing, though it's about the best we can do on a large scale. It's like, if Joe got a zero on his history test, that doesn't mean that he has NO knowledge of history; there's a myrad of reasons why he could've gotten that score in the first place. If Bonny scored a 40, and Joey scored an 80, that doesn't mean Joey knows twice as much as Bonny does. Man I'm no good at explaining stuff like this, but what I'm trying to get at is that these tests only score from 0 to 100 (usually), and that there's so many more possibilities than 0-100 that you could argue that standardize tests don't actually adequately grade a student's understanding of a subject. I think the best way is to go one-on-one with each student and just discuss/talk about what he/she knows one at a time, but there's nowhere near as much time in a day to set anything like that up.

[QUOTE=Levithan;42341499]It's pretty difficult to accurately asses one's knowledge of something through testing, though it's about the best we can do on a large scale. It's like, if Joe got a zero on his history test, that doesn't mean that he has NO knowledge of history; there's a myrad of reasons why he could've gotten that score in the first place. If Bonny scored a 40, and Joey scored an 80, that doesn't mean Joey knows twice as much as Bonny does. Man I'm no good at explaining stuff like this, but what I'm trying to get at is that these tests only score from 0 to 100 (usually), and that there's so many more possibilities than 0-100 that you could argue that standardize tests don't actually adequately grade a student's understanding of a subject. I think the best way is to go one-on-one with each student and just discuss/talk about what he/she knows one at a time, but there's nowhere near as much time in a day to set anything like that up.[/QUOTE] Care to give a specific example? I'm having trouble relating your generalized comments to the real world. I know of no one who knew a good amount about the history they were expected to learn and received a 0 on a test about said history.

[QUOTE=sgman91;42340603]Isn't the point of the test so that if you pass the test then you have properly learned the material? It seems your argument would better apply to making a better test then getting rid of it.[/QUOTE] If the material isn't on the test, it isn't taught. Standardized tests cover a great deal, but not everything in the classroom. And since they're weighted so much, teachers have no incentive to spend time teaching what isn't on the test. [editline]28th September 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=Antdawg;42341352]As sgman said, teaching students to pass the tests means teaching them the curriculum that is being tested, and if the students are passing those tests than they have obviously studied the curriculum. [B]It's kind of hilarious how so far the only people I have witnessed using your argument are people who don't put the effort in to studying.[/B][/QUOTE] What exactly does that have to do with anything?

I'd say the biggest problem with standardized testing (around here at least) is that nobody seems to really care. Students will just get through the test because it's way too many questions for something that doesn't affect your grade, and you end up just guessing when you can't be assed to work the question out.

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;42341722]If the material isn't on the test, it isn't taught. Standardized tests cover a great deal, but not everything in the classroom. And since they're weighted so much, teachers have no incentive to spend time teaching what isn't on the test.[/QUOTE] But the thing is that neither the students or even the teachers (until the very last moment) know what are in standardised tests, so it is necessary to teach everything possible (that is relevant, of course) and encourage students to study for everything possible so they can attempt the test prepared. On the other hand, if you have non-standardised tests (so having schools tailor the test as much as they can within the curriculum issued by the education board) you WILL have teachers only teaching the content that will be in a test so they can look like a good school. Standardised tests will lead to schools teaching their students the entire curriculum so that the students end up more knowledgeable, and so more likely to receive good marks in standardised tests. [b]Anecdotal[/b], but for example in my Software Design course back in senior school we spent several weeks studying logic gates for their to only be two or three questions in the final examination (a standardised test) that were relevant to logic gates. My teacher had no idea that there would be so few questions, but it didn't impede me from getting >80% in that test because our teacher still taught us the entire curriculum and I indeed studied the entire curriculum.

[QUOTE=Antdawg;42342019]But the thing is that neither the students or even the teachers (until the very last moment) know what are in standardised tests, so it is necessary to teach everything possible (that is relevant, of course) and encourage students to study for everything possible so they can attempt the test prepared. On the other hand, if you have non-standardised tests (so having schools tailor the test as much as they can within the curriculum issued by the education board) you WILL have teachers only teaching the content that will be in a test so they can look like a good school. Standardised tests will lead to schools teaching their students the entire curriculum so that the students end up more knowledgeable, and so more likely to receive good marks in standardised tests. [b]Anecdotal[/b], but for example in my Software Design course back in senior school we spent several weeks studying logic gates for their to only be two or three questions in the final examination (a standardised test) that were relevant to logic gates. My teacher had no idea that there would be so few questions, but it didn't impede me from getting >80% in that test because our teacher still taught us the entire curriculum and I indeed studied the entire curriculum.[/QUOTE] I don't know about Australia, but here in the US there's tons of "pre-tests" and "study packets" that explain what will be on the standardized tests.

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;42342328]I don't know about Australia, but here in the US there's tons of "pre-tests" and "study packets" that explain what will be on the standardized tests.[/QUOTE] So then you disagree with the packets and not the tests?