The Graduate Records Examination - Assignment Example

1) I have taken the Graduate Records Examination, the SAT, and the Iowa Tests of Basic Skill and have found all of these tests to be very difficult. In each of these situations, the student is placed into a pressure filled situation and left without much support. All throughout a student’s education, there is constant support from teachers, peers, and parents, but this is not present in these new situations. This can be troubling for many students, which can lead for them to panic about these new surroundings. For example, much of the classroom learning is done in a classroom environment, but these assessment tests can often take the students out of the classroom and into a new setting. While students should be able to adjust to these new surroundings, that is much more difficult than to say than do, as many students do have trouble with this. This also adds to the pressure of the assessment as a whole, as not only is the student told that his or her entire academic future could be riding on this one test, but he or she is also taken out of his or her comfort zone when writing the test. This can be particularly difficult for individuals, such as myself, who suffer from learning disabilities. I need complete focus and little to no pressure when writing a test and any abnormality can affect me greatly, as “many students end up in the slow track and are taught as if they cant learn. Remedial courses move more slowly; the students have little hope of ever catching up” (Wisconsin Education Association Council). When all of these factors are compounded, it is easy to see how someone could score significantly lower than his or her potential would suggest when writing these pressure-filled academic assessments. 2) As with anything, there are positive and negative aspects of assessment tests in the school and workplace. In schools, often times, assessment tests can be used in order to see how a particular grade of students is developing. In these situations, it can be used as a method of evaluating teachers. Also, it can be used as a method of seeing which students are much more advanced than their counterparts. This can be done in order to properly identify these advanced students and give them more advanced work, so that they will develop to their full potential. It can also be used to see which students are having a great deal of trouble with the subject matter, in order to give them a chance to catch up and should be “a systematic, ongoing process that involves gathering, interpreting, and using information for quality improvement in student academic achievement” (Indiana University Southeast). The problem with using these tests in schools, however, is that it is not a truly accurate identifier of the student’s overall intelligence. Many students simply do not perform well under the pressure of a testing environment. If this same students, however, were asked these same questions without this pressure, it is conceivable that their answers would be much different and, therefore, they would score higher on these evaluations. In the workplace, these assessments can be a good way of determining whether or not an employee is doing his or her job correctly, although a more accurate manner of doing so would perhaps be to observe these individuals in the workplace because it is possible that these employees also do not perform well under the pressure of the testing environment. 3) A personal attribute that I have that I could apply to the bell curve would be my height and shoe size. I am 5’10” and my shoe size is 10.5. This places me right around the average in both cases. Therefore, if I was to be evaluated on this, there would be people who are shorter than me with a smaller shoe size and there would be people who are taller than me with a larger shoe size, but the majority of the males who are assessed would be right around my height and shoe size. There would also be situations where someone shorter would have a larger shoe size and someone taller would have a smaller shoe size. Using this example, it is possible to see how varying the results of these assessments can be. Someone with a good math score could have a poor English score, which would bring that person closer to the average. Also, some people will have good score on everything, which will raise the curve as a whole, making the grade that those who are lower get seem worse. For example, being 5’10” does not make me short, but I am short in comparison to someone who is 6’4”. In a similar way, scoring the average on an assessment exam does not mean that my score is not good, unless it is compared to someone who scored much higher, although it has been said that “whenever a large sample of chaotic elements are taken in hand and marshaled in the order of their magnitude, an unsuspected and most beautiful form of regularity proves to have been latent all along“ (Goertzel, 1981). 4) Another way of looking at the bell curve is to use attributes that are not normally distributed. For example, according to a study states that “the top 1 percent of the world’s population — some 37 million adults with a net worth of at least $515,000 — accounted for about 40 percent of the world’s total net worth” (Porter, 2006). Therefore, wealth is not something that is not normally distributed amongst the population. This figure is even wider in some countries, meaning that the net wealth of a country can seem very high, but often times this only occurs because a few people hold all of this wealth. The same can be said for classroom assessments, as the top one percent of the students can often pull the curve upwards, which has a negative impact on the rankings of the rest of the students. The ability to write these assessment tests effectively is also not normally distributed, as it seems as though they are an opportunity for the students who are good at writing tests to excel, while providing additional difficulties for the students who struggle under the pressure of writing these tests. This is like rewarding the rich for having money and punishing the poor for not having money, which I suppose is how life goes, but it does not necessarily belong in a learning environment, nor is it an accurate representation of the student’s potential. 5) Variability is an important construct anytime these evaluations are given because variability is a natural by-product of this sort of assessment. If every student was scoring right around the same level, then there would obviously be a problem with the assessment in some form, as students never score at around the same level in any setting. This is once again similar to the height and shoe size argument, as these are normally distributed things that will never change over time. The varying scores that students achieve on assessment tests is also something that will not change because whenever there are that many people writing the same test, it would be impossible for them all to score exactly the same. The goal of this assessment should be to create a test that will cause some separation between the scores, because this will give a more accurate depicting of what needs to be worked on. When writing something like the SATs, it can also be important in determining a future career path, as someone who scores high on the math portion of the test, but struggles with the English part, should probably not pursue a career in journalism in the future. A form of this type of assessment comes in the form of Weber State University’s Mandatory Assessment and Placement Policy, which “is intended to enhance the success of undergraduate students by matching their knowledge and skills with appropriate math and/or English courses, as well as requiring that they complete their math and English courses in the beginning of their studies” (Weber State University, 2007). By varying test scores, it is possible to truly and clearly see where a student stands in relation to the others. For this reason, the tests must be written in a manner that will draw out differing answers from students, which can be done by allowing for them to interpret certain things and to draw their own conclusions based on these interpretations. 6) When using samples, it is important to make sure that the sample is not from too large or too small of the total students writing the test. If the sample is too large, then the law of large numbers comes into effect. What this law says is that “a random sample approaches the expected value of the population as the sample grows” (Investor Glossary), which means that the larger the sample gets, the closer to the average it will get. For example, if you were comparing a particular school district to the rest of the country, the numbers would become more and more similar as more students are assessed. This is not necessarily representative, however, as there are different populations, social trends and values, and other variables that need to be included. Likewise, the sample cannot be too small, as with a smaller sample, there is the possibility of only the students with higher test scores being included within the sample, which is not a fair representation either. The only fair way to come up with a sample is to take a random sample of a certain percentage of the students, as this will generally create a good idea of how the students truly rank. The alternative to this is to include every student in the sample, but this can be very time consuming and is not viable in most situations. A good sample needs to be representative of the population, not simply representative of the aspects of the population that are favorable. 7) The most interesting assessment setting for me comes in the form of the Iowa Testing Program because of what this information is used for, as “the emphasis in the program has been on the use of ITBS results for instructional purposes” (University of Iowa, 2008). What this means is that a sample is taken from these schools and then the results of this are applied to the curriculum. This can be an effective manner of ensuring that children are not left behind in certain subjects, as they will be constantly monitored in order to ensure their success. This assessment can also find disparities between certain schools in certain subjects, which can help for administrators to find manners in which to fix these problems. For example, if a certain school has a particularly low reading level, new programs can be implemented in order to ensure that something is done about this low reading level. Teachers can be given instructions that will help them with these problems, which will benefit the students in the long run because they will not be deprived of these skills as they move forward. Without a program like this, it could, conceivably, be possible for a student to make it all the way to university without having developed the same skills as his or her peers, which would create a number of problems for that student in this new learning environment. I find this interesting because it uses testing to help students, rather than to judge them. Works Cited Goertzel, Ted & Fashing, Joseph, (1981), "The Myth of the Normal Curve: A Theoretical Critique and Examination of its Role in Teaching and Research," Humanity and Society, 5:14-31, Viewed April 9, 2008, http://www.crab.rutgers.edu/~goertzel/normalcurve.htm Indiana University Southeast, "Plan for Assessing Student Academic Achievement", Viewed April 8, 2008, http://homepages.ius.edu/Groups/Assessment/AAPlan.htm Investorglossary, "Law Of Large Numbers", Viewed April 9, 2008. http://www.investorglossary.com/law-of-large-numbers.htm Porter, Eduardo, (December 6, 2006), "Study Finds Wealth Inequality Is Widening Worldwide", The New York Times, Viewed April 9, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/06/business/worldbusiness/06wealth.html?ex=1323061200&en=2288f715a0d67e10&ei=5088partner=rssnyt&emc=rss University of Iowa, (2008), "The Iowa Tests of Basic Skills", Iowa Testing Programs, Viewed April 9, 2008. http://www.education.uiowa.edu/itp/itbs/ Weber State University, (July 31, 2007), "Academic Advisement Center Assessment", Viewed April 9, 2008, http://programs.weber.edu/assessment/participants/results_of_assessment/Academicadvisement20062007_results.htm Wisconsin Education Association Council, "Variables Affecting Student Achievement", Viewed April 9, 2008, http://www.weac.org/resource/primer/variable.htm Read More