Standardized Tests in College?

But perhaps the biggest shift is that College Portrait institutions have four years to begin administering standardized tests to freshman and seniors. At the end of four years, the results of those tests will be made public. Why the wait? "Some schools will begin reporting right away but in general, we didn't feel that our institutions had enough experience with outcome testing" to demand colleges post the data immediately, says Schulenburger. They are tricky to administer and interpret, he adds.

Loren Crabtree, chancellor of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, says it's crucial to supply more information about college so prospective students and parents can make informed decisions. "None of us are happy with multiple-choice exams," says Crabtree. "And we need some time to figure out what is a good test, what is a good sample and how do we interpret those results. But we need to do it so we can make the case to families and students for higher education." He says his school will also show learning outcomes by going public with how University of Tennessee graduates do on grad-school admission tests like GRE's, MCATs and LSATs, as well as state and professional licensing exams.

University of California president Robert C. Dynes said in a letter to NASULGC that he would not be providing this kind of information for his nine campuses because "the University has concluded that using standardized tests on an institutional level as measures of student learning 1) fails to recognize the diversity, breadth, and depth of discipline-specific knowledge and learning that takes place in colleges and universities today and 2) usurps the role of campus and departmental faculty in assessing student learning." The University of California system intends to set up its own database.

Private universities, which rely less on public funding, aren't rushing to embrace standardized test for their students either. The National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, which is made up of 1,000 private institutions, unveiled their own Web site, UCAN, in September. The site, which has logged more than 100,000 visitors, lists facts about the schools such as the gender breakdown of undergraduates, what kinds of degrees are offered, tuition trends and the percentage of undergraduates enrolled there who get a diploma in five years.

Will prospective students learn how students from private universities fare on standardized tests? "Hundreds of private colleges do use the kind of standardized testing that the public colleges are using," says NAICU spokesman Tony Pals, "but we are not requiring that our institutions report that information. Our position is that colleges should have the choice to evaluate student learning the best way they see fit. The federal government should not be prescribing which learning outcomes those institutions should chose."

© 2007