Students who rejoiced at the thought of taking a break from standardized testing after high school might have started celebrating too soon.
A panel formed by the Bush administration in the fall is considering whether colleges and universities should start using standardized assessments to judge if students are acquiring critical skills.
The Commission on the Future of Higher Education is working to develop a report by August addressing the need to set standards for universities.
“Evidence shows students aren’t getting what they need,” said Richard Hersh, co-director of Collegiate Learning Assessment. “Assessment is a powerful form of teaching.”
In the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy, only one-third of the college graduates surveyed showed an ability to read and make inferences from complex English texts.
For five years, Hersh has helped develop the CLA exam with university professors and student feedback. The exam has been used by 134 U.S. colleges and universities, Hersh wrote in a November 2005 article published in The Atlantic Monthly.
Unless standardized testing becomes a requirement for university funding, Northwestern probably won’t adopt such an exam, said Stephen Fisher, associate provost for undergraduate education.
“As far as I am aware, we have not looked into any standardized testing of any kind,” Fisher said. “It would be difficult considering the diversity of students we have in our school.”
Medill freshman Jennifer Chen said she didn’t think standardized tests would work in a college setting.
“In high school you have core classes that every student takes,” Chen said. “At NU there are a number of classes and majors.” Tests would only work if they were major-specific, she said.
The CLA is a 90-minute written exam that tests 100 freshman and 100 seniors on their reasoning and communication skills. Every student should be expected to develop those skills during college, Hersh said.
“We’re not trying to test everything a student learns in college,” he said. “It’s not possible.”
Economics Prof. Joel Horowitz argued that each department has a different view of what skills are most important.
“The definition of critical thinking varies greatly among subject areas,” he said.
Horowitz said the problem lies in the education students receive before attending college.
“I think Northwestern is a very selective institution so the kind of students that standardized tests are mainly targeting – There are probably not very many of them among Northwestern students,” Horowitz said. “I think the problem here is the failures of K-12 education are being loaded onto colleges and universities.”
Hersh said university standardized test results should not be used for matriculation or public rankings. Instead, he said the exams can help colleges improve their abilities to educate and give feedback to students.
“It’s a great way for colleges to find out what techniques are effective through collaboration and discussion,” Hersh said.
He said he thinks some college professors are offended by the idea of standardized testing because they think it questions their ability to educate.
Prof. Brian Bouldrey, director of NU’s creative writing program, said his fear is that standardized exams might stifle original thinking.
But he agreed with Hersh that discussion about curriculum is vital.
“Each department needs to sit down and decide what students need to learn,” Bouldrey said, “then amongst schools decide what’s important.”
Reach Jasett Chatham at [email protected].
