To test or not to test...

With a background in psychology and counseling, testing and assessment have been a big part of my training. I've proctored intelligence (IQ) tests, personality tests, and a multitude of assessments aimed at identifying risk. At times, these assessments can provide a glimpse into a person's functioning. At other times, the information is next to meaningless. Often, the real information lies not in the scores, but in the careful observation and interpretation of the data... which, sadly, is information often lost on statisticians and busy administrators and teachers. For instance, consider a child who is administered a traditional IQ test (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, or WISC). This child may have parents who are in the midst of contentious divorce, has lost sleep due to tension at home, is not eating well due to loss of household income, or is traveling between parental homes and is lacking structure, safety, and security. These conditions obviously affect performance and scores, however, it is often not taken into consideration because it is either not reported (due to lack of information), or, if it is, may be overlooked in the long narrative due to the reader's haste for identifying a score or lack of experience in reading such reports.

In-school testing is no different. Each of us could likely identify an examination that we totally blew due to outside circumstances (health, sleep, personal/relationship issues, life stressors/crises, etc). Now consider the impact of having this score follow you and impact your ability to access resources, attain appropriate placement, or even continue your education. 

The value of academic testing, particularly educational performance on standardized tests, has been highly debated. Recent research indicates that educational success is not best predicted by test scores, and that international comparisons are plagued by problems with interpretation (Rotberg, 2006). In fact, the best indicators of a student's scores (particularly in math and science) are: socioeconomic status (poverty level;) teacher's highest level of education; and teacher's sense of autonomy/authority vs budgets based on scores (Woessman, 2001).

Consider Germany, with a highly stratified system that tracks children beginning around fifth grade (Rotberg, 2006).  Children are funneled into 1 of 3 different tracks: Gymnasium (like college prep), Realschule (vocational/technical training), and Hauptschule (low-level often vocational training that is highly correlated with later unemployment). Despite standardized testing, it is not test scores that determine a child's track, but rather teachers and parents (Rotberg, 2006). And academic achievement is most highly correlated with socioeconomic status, more than any other country (Rotberg, 2006). 


What, then, is the answer? Does testing have a place? If so, what tests?

My personal opinion is that standardized testing has little place in elementary and middle school; however may have a place in institutional acceptance procedures (ie, college, university, or other advanced educational programs). More important than early standardized academic testing is early social emotional assessment. 

Social emotional intelligence is defined as a young child's ability to demonstrate social emotional development in her ability "to form close and secure adult and peer relationships; experience, regulate, and express emotions in socially and culturally appropriate ways; and explore the environment and learn" (Yates, et al., 2008). Social emotional intelligence is linked to later success in school and in life. Not only is this a more holistic look at the individual child, the assessment is more holistic as well. Assessment is "a dynamic process of systematically gathering information from multiple sources and settings, collected over numerous points in time, and reflecting a wide range of child experiences" (Yates, et al., 2008). The advantage of this type of assessment is that it takes place over time, in multiple settings, and provides wider scope though which the child can be viewed. This type of assessment has greater ability to identify internal resources within the child, or areas for development, that will aid her in lifelong happiness and success. After all, a 4.0 GPA or 1600 on the SAT means little if the person lacks the social-emotional development to work with others, empathize, develop relationships, and manage internal stress or frustration.

References

Rotberg, I. (2006). Assessment Around the World. In Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Retrieved August 6, 2016. from  http://neqmap.unescobkk.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Assessment-Around-the-World.pdf

Woessman, L. (2001). Why Students in Some Countries Do Better. In Education Next. Retrieved August 6, 2016 from http://educationnext.org/whystudentsinsomecountriesdobetter/





Yates, T., Ostrostky, M., Cheatham, G., Fettig, A., Shaffer, L., & Santos, R. (2008). Research Synthesis on Screening and Assessing Social-Emotional Competence. From The Center for the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning. Retrieved August 6, 2016 from http://csefel.vanderbilt.edu/documents/rs_screening_assessment.pdf