With college admissions season upon us, these institutions are placed under a microscope. Among the expected scrutiny over academic programs, housing facilities and campus aesthetics, college rankings have become increasingly important to students and their families. However, it is often ambiguous what exactly these rankings are based upon. Due to the sheer variety of factors one can measure, it is often challenging to create fundamental assessment criteria to base these rankings on.
According to an article published in The New York Times Sunday, this trend is set to change. An introduction of a standardized test in a college setting could be used to aid in ranking schools based on how students have progressed during their four-year undergraduate program.
The article details how some governmental organizations are attempting to have college administrations gather data about learning in order to see how effective colleges are at teaching students. The foray into standardized testing will aim to see if students garnered additional critical thinking skills in their four years of college, as opposed to solely measuring their intelligence, which is not solely dependent on their college careers. For policymakers and college administrators, these findings could potentially hold valuable information about teaching methods at the undergraduate level. Nevertheless, the term “critical thinking” is again a subjective one and the tests could penalize students who do not show progress on standardized tests. Furthermore, public schools would be more inclined to complete these tests, whereas private institutions would be less so.
Of course, critics claim that standardized testing could be incredibly rigid for many institutions. In addition, the tests would have to be well structured to eliminate any biases that could skew the results. Should these issues be addressed, the test may be adopted by more institutions and taken more seriously. Another concern would be how these results will be publicized; with so many external variables to consider, many will be sceptical that a standardized test could adequately portray the quality of learning at a college or university. Education will only deteriorate if colleges become fixated with ensuring their students succeed on these standardized tests, when they should be focused on the amelioration of their system as whole.
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