Myths and Tradeoffs The Role of Tests in Undergraduate Admissions (1999) / Chapter Skim
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What Do Test Scores Really Mean?
What Do Test Scores Really Mean?
Pages 17-27
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From page 17... ...
While published college rankings provide average freshman class scores for individual schools, schools use the scores they receive in a wide variety of ways. As we have noted, arguments about many of these uses have landed in courtrooms across the nation and will likely soon be heard by the Supreme Court.
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From page 18... ...
Though these tests are used in the college admissions process, their role varies widely and has not generated the controversies that the SAT I has; they are not addressed in this report. 2The test has evolved since it was first introduced, but its current basic format has been in place since the 1950s; it was modestly revised in the early l990s, when antonym questions were dropped and sentence completion questions were introduced.
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From page 19... ...
in usage/mechanics and rhetorical skills, as well as an overall score; · a 60-minute, 60-item mathematics test that yields an overall score and three subscores, in pre-algebra and elementary algebra, intermediate algebra and coordinate geometry, and plane geometry and trigonometry; · a 35-minute, 40-item reading test that yields an overall score and two subscores, for arts and literature and social sciences and science; and · a 35-minute, 40-item science reasoning test that yields only a total score. It addresses content"likely to be found in a high school general science course" drawn from biology, chemistry, physics, geology, astronomy, and meteorology.
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From page 20... ...
In addition, freshman grades are not based on uniform standards, but on often subjective judgments that vary across disciplines and institutions; this factor also tends to depress the tests' predictive validity (Willingham, 1998:3, 6-8~. This point also underscores the problems with using freshman-year grades as the criterion variable; like the test scores themselves, GPAs that are calculated to two decimal points lend this measure a deceptively precise air.
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From page 21... ...
But test scores were not designed to provide information about all of the factors that influence success in college, which is why test developers specifically recommend that a student's score be used as only one among many criteria considered in the admission process. It is well known that conflicting impulses motivated the pioneers of college admissions tests some hoped to open the nation's ivory towers to able students from diverse backgrounds while others sought"scientific" means of excluding particular groups (see Lemann ~1 995a, 1 995b]
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From page 22... ...
· Standardized tests provide students with an opportunity to demonstrate talent. For students whose academic records are not particularly strong, a high score can lead admissions officers to consider acceptance for a student who would otherwise be rejected.
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From page 23... ...
Another way of looking at this point is to consider that only fairly large differences in scores could be of use in distinguishing among students who could and could not undertake the work at a particular institution. Using data collected from eleven very selective institutions,Vars and Bowen calculated that"the coefficient on the combined SAT score ~verbal plus mathematics]
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From page 24... ...
But such a test would have a cutoff score derived from a clear articulation of the knowledge necessary to perform the job safely and would likely contain many questions targeted toward refining the discrimination around the cutpoint. Such a test would be useful for identifying those who can and cannot perform particular tasks, but not for spreading all the test takers on a scale.6 Neither the SAT nor the ACT was designed to make fine distinctions at any point on their scales; rather, both were designed to spread students out across the scales, and both are constructed to provide a balance of questions at a wide range of difficulty levels.
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From page 25... ...
However, test scores are also sometimes used in ways that are not in line with their designs or stated purposes; beyond their technical capacities; or detrimental to important widely shared goals for the process, that is, that it be fair, open, and effective. More specifically, the steering committee has identified two persistent myths that have skewed the debate: Myth: What admissions tests measure is a compelling distillation of academic merit that should have dominant influence on admissions deci slons.
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From page 26... ...
Unfortunately, the rankings also provide incentives for schools to encourage a large volume of applications, despite the fact that the large volume increases the diff~culty of the selection process. The strength of the competitive pressure, and how much it varies, can only be guessed at, but admissions officers and other administrators know that it would be possible to manipulate their policies in ways that would affect their rankings if they chose to do so.
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From page 27... ...
Scores calculated for neighborhoods, geographic regions, and the nation as a whole are cited as indicators of academic success and school quality and can even influence real estate values. Comparisons of the average SAT scores of black and white students are also cited as evidence of the advantage given to black applicants at particular institutions (Bowen and Bok, 1998:15-16~.
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