The Fairness of Academic Evaluation

The Fairness of Academic Evaluation

American students used to pass from grade to grade with few complications. Getting into a college was effortless and acquiring degrees was a piece of cake. In 1983, A Nation at Risk was published and Americans realized how inferior their education systems really were. Due to the decline in test scores in American schools, education standards became much stricter and new intelligence exams were introduced. Presently, standardized testing, such as the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and the American College Testing Program (ACT), is a mandatory and important part of the college acceptance process. Although these exams test students on the same topics, genders have proven to be stronger in some fields and weaker in others. Men are typically stronger in mathematical and visual-spatial components, while women are stronger in verbal aspects of the exams. For these reasons, standardized testing is an unfair way of determining one's intelligence though they are quite fair if combined with grades and activities in the college admissions process.

On the surface, the objective measures of today's standardized tests sound sensible. In theory, they give every student a solid picture of achievement, and an equal opportunity for advancement. But after years of memorization and drills, what were once intellectually excited and motivated five-year-olds have become bored or grade-obsessed teenagers. Their thrill over accomplishing real tasks and exhibiting real skills is replaced with anxiety over upcoming tests and a concern for high grades. By giving the exams such importance, they are stripping the classrooms of all of the freedom of learning and encouraging the students to focus, not on what they want to learn, but what they have to learn to pass the exams. But isn't accepting the pitfalls of societal norms a necessary part of growing up?

The transition from secondary school to college is an important step, not only to the person making it, but also to a nation committed to the education of its citizens in a technological world. In fact, the United States has one of the highest rates in the world of secondary students who go into higher education and earn college degrees. Taking assessment tests during high school helps students determine their strengths and weaknesses and choose suitable colleges. Several organizations are involved in assessing student aptitude or achievement. The College Board, founded in 1900, administers the Advance Placement, ACT, PSAT and SAT exams and these exams are used to judge academic ability and preparedness for college. Approximately ten percent of four year colleges indicate that the SAT and ACT scores are optional for admission. Highly selective colleges may base admissions on formulas in which standardized test scores account for as much as two- thirds of the calculation. Although they do not measure many characteristics necessary for success in college, such as motivation, creativity and persistence, admissions tests are designed to provide a consistent measure across the variety of curricula and opportunities offered in the U.S. high schools.

Women accounted for the majority of test-takers of the SAT, ACT, and Advanced Placement exams in 1996. Women are considerably increasing their performance on these tests but men are as well. Two ways in which men and women taking the college placement tests differ are in their socioeconomic characteristics and the type of class work taken in high school. A larger number of women, approximately sixty percent, from low-income families choose to take college entrance exams. In higher income families, the gender majority was evenly split. Do course-taking differences account for test score differences among groups? This was believed earlier, as a 1987 National

Academy of Sciences report stated that, "The general consensus is that these gender

differences in college admission mathematics test scores can be largely accounted

for by differences in the amount of mathematics, physical science and computer

programming courses that high school and college-bound women take compared

to their male peers (Lebold, 1987)."

Similar proportions of women and men took honors math and science classes, such as chemistry, biology, trigonometry and calculus. Though men dominate the percentage of students taking physics. An examination of the SAT mathematics test scores for only the students who reported taking the highest level of math (calculus) and science (physics) showed lower on average than men. Among those who