Standardized test

A standardized test is a test that is done and scored in a consistent, or "standard", manner. Standardized tests are designed so that everything about them are standard. They are administered and scored in a predetermined, standard manner.^[1]

Often they are used as a test to join an institution or gain a license of some sort. The grading system is the same no matter where they are taken. They can be used for university entry, like the SAT and ACT in the United States or the Gaokao in the People's Republic of China (PRC). They can be used a requirement to get a job, like the LSAT for lawyers.

In the United States the term is often used for the multiple-choice questions used in the educational system. They are thought by some to be a poor way to measure educational progress.^[2][3] They are, however, convenient and cheap. Marking does not require expertise in the subject-matter.

Many psychological tests are designed to be standardized. They are designed to be "an objective and standardized measure of a sample of behavior".^[4]

The first known standardized test was in Imperial China, when Empress Wu allowed anyone who passed the test to be a government official based on their merit rather than birthright, meaning that people work to become leaders rather than being born into leadership. However, we do not know the details of this system.^[5]

Related pages

• Evaluation
• Psychometrics
• Test (assessment)

References

1. Phelps, Richard P. "Role & importance of testing". nonpartisaneducation.org. Retrieved 2016-05-17.
2. Popham W.J. 1999. Why standardized test scores don't measure educational quality. Educational Leadership 56 (6): 8–15.
3. Ravitch, Diane 1985. The uses and misuses of tests, in The schools we deserve. New York: Basic Books, pp. 172–181. [1] Archived 2017-10-18 at the Wayback Machine
4. Urbina, Susana; Anastasi, Anne (1997). Psychological testing (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. pp. 4. ISBN 9780023030857. OCLC 35450434.
5. Robert J. Gregory 2003. The history of psychological testing, in Psychological testing: history, principles, and applications. Allyn & Bacon. ISBN 9780205354726