American students take around 112 standardized tests spanning from kindergarten to 12 grade. Based on their scores, students’ intelligence level is determined, but standardized tests are not a good measure of intellect and ability. The tests should be used by teachers to determine what they need to work on teaching in their classroom, but these tests should not be used to determine how “smart” a student is.
There are two types of standardized tests; standardized aptitude tests and standardized achievement tests. Standardized aptitude tests predict how well a student is likely to perform in one subject and standardized achievement test scores are used by schools to determine how well students are being taught.
Based on how the students do on the standardized tests they take, some schools may receive more money from the government than other schools. Because of this, teachers may “teach to the test” instead of teaching students the material they need in order to succeed in their educational careers. Teaching only what will be on the test can have a detrimental effect on a student’s learning potential. It creates a limited scope for learning because they are not being taught what they need to be taught to succeed.
Standardized tests do not consider outside factors such as test anxiety, personal lives or the fact that some students may not be good test-takers. A student may know a subject well but get test anxiety when they take standardized tests, causing them to not do as well on those as they would on other schoolwork. Other students may not have the same opportunities to prepare for a standardized test that other students have due to their home lives.
While standardized tests can be useful to schools when it comes to determining what teachers need to teach more in-depth, there are some things that the tests cannot measure. They typically only test students on certain subjects like reading, writing and math, even though there are many other things that a student can be knowledgeable about. This stems back to the problem that teachers may only teach what is on the test rather than what the student needs. It cannot measure the amount of effort each student puts into the test and they cannot measure the determination a student has to succeed. Some students may take the test scores they receive to heart and think that if they do not have a good score, it means they are not intelligent. These tests give students a test score that does not adequately measure their knowledge and creates standards for them that could damage how they think about their intelligence.