One of the major claims of the report of University of California's Task Force on Standardized Testing is that SAT and ACT scores are superior to high-school grades in predicting how students will perform at UC. This finding has been widely reported in the news media and cited in several editorials favoring UC's continued use of SAT/ACT scores in…

In an era when individuality has been increasingly emphasized, the development of science and technology has provided technical support for the realization of individuation. However, in an examination-oriented education system, the education model has not attached sufficient importance to individuality. The modern education industry focuses much…

Scotland is experiencing a period of radical educational transformation in the effort to raise attainment. Dearden argued for the promotion of autonomy in 1975 at another time of sweeping educational change. The principle of autonomy is firmly entrenched in Scotland's Curriculum for Excellence and seen as key to ensuring pupils develop a broad…

Given the widespread use and high-stakes nature of educational standardized assessments, understanding factors that affect test-taking ability in young adults is vital. Although scholarly attention has often focused on demographic factors (e.g., gender and race), sufficiently prevalent acquired characteristics may also help explain widespread…

Background: Both ability (measured by power tests) and non-ability (measured by preference tests) individual difference measures predict academic school outcomes. These include fluid as well as crystalized intelligence, personality traits, and learning styles. This paper examines the incremental validity of five psychometric tests and the sex and…

A meta-analysis of the relationship between class attendance in college and college grades reveals that attendance has strong relationships with both class grades (k = 69, N = 21,195, p = 0.44) and GPA (k = 33, N = 9,243, p = 0.41). These relationships make class attendance a better predictor of college grades than any other known predictor of…

Educational Testing Service completed a four-year study that analyzed results from over 400 different assessments and 1,500 data sets involving millions of students. By comparing statistic Ds (standard mean difference) across assessments, researchers found that gender differences among subject areas are smaller than one might expect but grow by…

The recent No Child Left Behind legislation has defined a vital role for large-scale assessment in determining whether students are learning. Given this increased role of standardized testing as a means of accountability, the purpose of this article is to consider how individual differences in motivational and psychological processes may…

Girls are outperforming boys in public examinations. However, this does not apply to "all boys" and "all girls", nor is it true of every subject. This paper questions the claims made based upon the statistical evidence and goes on to look at social, individual and school factors that may contribute to observed gender differences in school…

Results are reported for a series of 13 studies examining individual differences in information processing efficiency. The tasks used represented different content domains and levels of processing complexity. A total of 680 individuals (balanced between males and females, and aged 18 to 25 years) were tested. Subjects were selected from…

This paper presents a conceptualization of test bias for standardized ability tests which is based on multidimensional, non-parametric, item response theory. An explanation of how individually-biased items can combine through a test score to produce test bias is provided. It is contended that bias, although expressed at the item level, should be…

Explores the ethical issues involved in using standardized tests to implement a state-level policy. Examines the fourth grade science program evaluation test administered in New York State for the first time in 1989. A utilitarian view of ethics ignores the consequences of testing for different constituents, obviates caring behavior, and damages…

Three key contributions of Iris Young to democratic political theory, and three challenges that have arisen in response to Young's theory, are examined here in relation to education. First, Young has argued that oppression and domination, not distributive inequality, ought to guide discussions about justice. Second, eliminating oppression requires…

In order to better understand contributing factors of moral judgment development, gifted youth and college students were compared. Moral judgment development, ACT scores, attributional complexity, and descriptors of personality were assessed among 140 college students and 97 gifted youth. Important distinctions favoring the gifted sample were seen…

This fact sheet lists problems involved in the use of standardized tests. It is argued that standardized tests are not really fair and helpful evaluation tools because they reward the ability to answer superficial questions quickly and do not measure the ability to think or create in any field. They also assume that all test takers have been…