Team B Methods Paper
The goal of standardized testing is to evaluate student ability with a uniform, non-biased instrument. They have “been shown to predict students’ future educational attainment and adult employment and income” (Trafton, 2013, para. 2). First used in Imperial China for determining suitable employees for the government of the ruling class (Do standardized tests show an accurate view of students’ abilities, 2012), the standardized test as we know it now is a result of an open letter to the public by the U.S. Department of Education entitled, “A Nation At Risk: The Imperative For Educational Reform”, that was released in 1983 (Jolley, 2014). The SAT, an aptitude test typically taken by high school juniors and seniors, was started in 1926 and has been modified multiple times to eradicate any evidence of bias and contain no references to content outside the classroom (Bauerlein, 2015). The demand for removing bias has led to one of the reasons for opposition to standardized testing; teaching to the test. Educators feel stripped of autonomy (Jolley, 2014), and that this type of curriculum does not encourage critical thinking skills. Supporters of standardized testing, however, believe that they hold teachers and schools accountable to taxpayers by being able to measure student achievement and be judged according to student performance (Do standardized tests show an accurate view of students' abilities, 2012). The goal of this study is not make an argument for or against, only to demonstrate any correlations between standardized test scores and intelligence, and provide suggestions for further research. For our research study, our group is asking whether or not standardized testing give an accurate evaluation of a student’s level of intelligence. We believe that student who score failing grades on the math portion of the Texas standardized test