Mike's answer (and the comments of others on this list) was the manner
of framing the issue that I would have expected of someone interested in
SAT testing issues.
I was very surprised to see Atkinson reducing standardization to only
the issue of administration and the aptitude/achievement distinction to
the issue of whether one is talking about a pretest or a posttest. There
are important differences if you are trying to develop a test of
aptitude compared to an achievement test. I found his analysis of the
consequences of switching from an aptitude to an achievement-based
college admissions procedure to be very superficial.
Ken
Mike Palij wrote:
----- Original Message -----
Subject: definition of "standardized test"
From: Ken Steele <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 13:32:18 -0400
Here is a definition I have never seen before:
"By 'standardized test,' I mean simply a test administered under
controlled conditions and carefully monitored to prevent cheating."
Richard C. Atkinson,
from "College Admissions and the SAT: A personal perspective.
APS Observer, May 2005, 18 (5), p. 15
Ken
NOTE: I receive TiPS in digest format and was able to
read follow-up responses to the original post provided
above.
My first reaction to the post above is: And?
There appears to be a question here but because it is
implicitly stated (something like: "I've never seen
standardized tests defined this way, have you?")
it is not clear whether you're seeking a social consensus
(i.e., there are other people who have "never" seen
this kind of definition for "standardized tests") or
whether you're asking the definition is technically
incorrect. The responses that I've read so far seem
to try to address both points, raising additional issues
about what Atkinson might be talking about but
I'm not really sure they're on point (however, since
the question is unclear, why should I quibble about
the answers?).
(4) For anyone still reading this, let me try to summarize what I
say above in the following statements:
(a) the aptitude-achievement distinction is not really a psychometrically
based one, rather it depends upon the kinds of assumptions one is
willing to make about the sources for demonstrated "ability":
(i) aptitude, with the source being genetic or "native intelligence"
(or, in an attempt to avoid a genetic/racial linkage, some diffuse set
of historical or environmental experiences unrelated to schoolish
or classroom learning), or
(ii) achievement, with the source being experiences linked to specific
activities both inside and outside of a classroom, all serving to the
development of knowledge consistent with an academic subject.
The simplest position to take is that performance on a test like the
SAT is due to aptitude. Clearly, the early developers and proponents
of the SAT thought performance on it was due to aptitude or "native
intelligence". But the recognition of racial, gender, and class disparities
in the performance on the SAT, from this perspective, would be that
these differences reflect the "innate intelligence" of these different
groups. Needless to say, the "aptitude only" assumption lacks not
only scientific credibility but political viability as well. If the SAT is
not an aptitude test, then what is it? An achievement test? A reflection
of an aptitude-achievement interaction? Or a model like the following:
SAT Score = contrib(aptitude) + contrib(achiev) + contrib(apt * achiev)
That is, performance on the SAT is due the independent contributions
of aptitude and achievement as well as their interaction. The real question
is why does this even matter? What does the SAT tell us, if anything,
about whether or not a person will stay in college and perform well,
especially if we can't condition such predictions on the basis of one's
aptitude and/or achievement, as defined above?
(b) Atkinson's use of "standardized testing" is more consistent
with Wood's notion that some form of independent testing under
consistent conditions for all students everywhere should occur if
we want to have an adequate or accurate indication of what a
child has learned in school. This is consistent with achievement
testing because course curricula should specify what children
should learn and know by the end of a course and how to fairly
test all students who went through the curriculum. I haven't
commented on it before this point but I am assuming that any test
used in the above situations have demonstrated reliability and validity
without which testing under standardized conditions would probably
be meaningless.
Mike Palij
New York University
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
---------------------------------------------------------------
Kenneth M. Steele, Ph.D. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Department of Psychology http://www.psych.appstate.edu
Appalachian State University
Boone, NC 28608
USA
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