Though many colleges and universities have shifted towards test optional admissions, the debate around using standardized testing to measure students’ academic abilities remains.
In an effort to reevaluate current assessment models, the Educational Testing Service (ETS) hosted a webinar series on Tuesday titled, “A Different Kind of Thinking.” The two-day convening provides higher education scholars and students the opportunity to share their research and own experiences around standardized tests such as the SAT and ACT.
“If you believe as I do, that our current system has reached the limit of its ability to produce equity across population groups, then the pause in testing has given us an opportunity for true transformation,” said Dr. Michael T. Nettles, senior vice president and the Edmund W. Gordon Chair for Policy Evaluation and Research at ETS.
Often times, a positive performance in the classroom does not equate to higher SAT and ACT scores. Outside stress factors such as transportation, food insecurity and finances can also affect “bandwidth.”
“All of us have difficulties in life,” said Dr. Eldar Shafir, a professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton University. “What is interesting is when they are less pressing, most people on this talk could spend the next hour putting aside fixing things that need to be fixed. But if it comes to being evicted on Monday or kids’ dinner, that’s different.”
Research has found that academic performance among students without pressing financial concerns correlates to their SAT and ACT scores “as expected.” That is not the case for those with high financial concerns, said Shafir.
COVID-19 and racial unrest has brought on additional uncertainties. For example, Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, president emerita at Spelman College, imagined how difficult it would be for students to focus while they awaited Tuesday’s verdict of Derek Chauvin in the murder trial of George Floyd.
