The term “competency” is related to the ‘abilities’, ‘commitments’, and ‘knowledge’ of an individual. There is always one question that has always been asked, “How to define one as more capable than another?”. According to Rukundo and Magambo, a test is part of the teaching-learning procedure that is being conducted and practiced at all levels of institutions globally (2010). Therefore, the test scores are widely selected to be a reliable indication of students’ competency. However, in the study of 1400 eighth-graders in Boston school, Gabrieli (as cited in Trafton, 2013) found that the practice of education is only to boost the test scores but not the intelligence skills of the students. Even though the schools have successfully increased students’ test scores, students are still not showing the development of memory capacity and the processing speed of solving the problem. Therefore, test scores are not the most accurate indication of individual competency based on three reasons.
Schools and teachers believe that tests a good measurements because they are objective and fair (Herbert, 2012). Tests are given to a group of students at the same time with the same instructions, and the same questions with an invigilator to guard students attempting cheating. However, these conditions are not effective enough to prevent them from cheating. From my personal experience, students are cheating without preparing for the test in my high school class. At the end of the day, they still managed to get a higher score than me. In addition, the result of the 2011 Georgia case (Guzman-Lopez, 2013), there are 180 teachers in 44 schools are caught cheating. They changed the answers to the student's work and told the exact specifications of the test to students. In short, cheating to get a high test score is common.
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The opponent said that “Teaching to the test” is a good thing since it focuses on the main point with specific content and skills and it also cuts the time-wasting on a lecture that boosts learning gain (Barth, & Mitchell, 2016). Thus, students will always rely on the lecturer to teach them everything and they will not invest the time in self-study to develop their knowledge. Knowledge is within the exam boundary. The point is that “Teaching to the test” is replacing the practical teaching styles (Valli, n.d.). According to the investigation of Valli in fourth and fifth-grade teachers, the author found that the style of teaching is narrowing down. The teacher is starting to focus more on how to cover the lecture on time. Teachers choose teaching to the test rather than the high quality of teaching. For example, according to the PISA (2012), United States students have a weakness in solving and interpreting higher cognitive mathematical problems and real-life situations regardless they are doing well on the test. All in all, “Teaching to the test” will not show the competency of the student.
Considering this statement, the test is one struggle, which triggers students to work hard in any way possible to pass. However, the disappointing outcome is that the student works hard on trying to memorize the lesson in the textbook (Database, 2017). The point is the test is mostly conducted based on the lesson in the textbook which means that most answers to the questions are all can be found easily. Students mostly forget what they are memorizing after finishing the test. According to Gardner (as cited in Thomas, 2013), a group of Harvard graduates was asked why it is colder in the winter and warmer in the summer. Unexpectedly, most of them got the question wrong. They can do well on the test but poorly understand the basic idea. Thus, exams test students’ memory more than analytic, creative, or understanding (Database, 2017). To say the least, we cannot assume that a high-score student is the most intelligent.
To sum up, test scores are not the most accurate indication of individual competency. This is because many cases and incidents are showing student and teacher cheating methods. In addition, memorizing the lesson is more of a common approach to getting a high score on the test. More than that, the students are being taught based on what appears on the test by the “drill and kill” method to get a high score. The three arguments clearly show that the test is not a reliable indicator. Ascea recommends, that to measure individual competency, we should be involved in many other indications such as the level of intelligence, ability to solve a real-life problem, and individual creativity. After gathering all the data and then we should find the average among all to know the competency of each individual.
Reference
- Armstrong, T. (2013, February 28). 15 Reasons Why Standardized Tests are Worthless. American Institute for Learning and Human Development. Retrieved from: http://www.institute4learning.com/2013/02/28/15-reasons-why-standardized-tests-are-worthless-2/
- Barth, P., & Mitchell, R. (2006, February 16). Standardized Tests and Their Impact on Schooling. Retrieved from: http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/
- Debatewise.org. (2017, February 22). Are Examinations a Fair Way of Testing Our Knowledge? Retrieved from: https://debatewise.org/debates/1215-are-examinations-a-fair-way-of-testing-our-knowledge/
- Guzman-Lopez, A. (2013, March 28). Report: Cheating on standardized tests in 75 percent of U.S. States. Member-supported News for Southern California. Retrieved from: https://www.scpr.org/blogs/education/2013/03/28/13089/report-cheating-on-standardized-tests-in-75-percen/
- Herbert, J. (2012). Standardized Tests Effectively Measure Student Achievement. Retrieved from https://www.humbleisd.net/cms/lib/TX01001414/Centricity/Domain/5174/Testing%20-%20For.pdf
- Id. (2015, January 30). Written Testimony to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, And Pensions (HELP) on “Fixing No Child Left Behind: Testing and Accountability”. Your Ally, Your Voice. Retrieved from: https://www.teachthevote.org/blog-content/uploads/2015/01/ATPE-Written-Testimony-to-the-Senate-Committee-on-HELP_Testing-and-Accountability-01-21-15.pdf
- Rukundo, A., & Magambo, J. (2010, October). Effective Administration in Schools: Principle & Good Practices for Test Administrators in Uganda. African Journal of Teacher Education, 1(1), 166-173.
- Trafton, A. (2013, December 11). Even when test scores go up, some cognitive abilities don’t. MIT News. Retrieved from: http://news.mit.edu/2013/even-when-test-scores-go-up-some-cognitive-abilities-dont-1211
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