Contoh Argumentative Writing

Should the Standardized Test be the only Measurement for Students’ Ability in Learning?

Part of our future is determined by how good we are in a test. Over the past decade, schools use standardized test for several purposes. For example, to pass students from the schools, to know their learning progress in schools, to place them in a class suited their abilities, or to measure their worthiness to enroll to a university. “A standardized test is a test that is administered and scored in a consistent, or "standard", manner.
Standardized tests are designed in such a way that the questions, conditions for administering, scoring procedures, and interpretations are consistent and are administered and scored in a predetermined, standard manner “ (Wikipedia, 2010). Standardized test should cover all aspects, including the test writing style. Standard means the test should be reliable and valid, and have minimal errors of measurement and scoring, administration, and reporting guidelines (Dolezalek, 2009). Standardized test could be in multiple-choice, true false, or essay questions form. Multiple-choice and true false items are the most common questions form because computer can score them inexpensively and quickly. However, it seems unfair for students if they rely their future only on the result of a standardized test. Standardized test should not be the only tool to measure students’ ability in learning. There are many factors worth considering as assessments on how well students in their learning process. This essay will first discuss about the reason for not using standardized test as the only measurement for students’ ability in learning, then it will provide several alternatives for better assessment.

Some people may argue that standardize tests measures candidates ability in an objective way. This is because the grading system is based on several standardized guidelines and usually done by a machine, which removes the bias that may emerge from a human being assessor. However, the words, the contents, or the determination of the correct answers are made by human beings who have subjective feelings (fairtest.org, 2007). This means that although the grading system is objective because it is done by a machine, the determination of the correct or incorrect answer may not be objective because it is still decided by a human who may have a bias feeling.

Furthermore, it is also claimed that standardized tests result shows reliability because it can be generalized and repeated. The term ‘reliable’ must be highlighted here. Reliable means if a test is given at different times or situations, the results will be the same. However, candidates’ score may not consistent from day to day. This is because many factors influencing candidates when taking the tests, for example, candidates’ physics and mental condition.

Standardized test should only be a small portion in measuring students’ ability because of several reasons. Firstly, one test does not fit for all students. In fact, even students who are given the same curriculum in the same class will learn different things. One student will interpret the material given differently from other students because they have different school experiences, family backgrounds, learning styles, and motivations. For example, a student coming from a non-native speaker might make mistake when reading a test question, hence, giving a wrong answer. Another example is a child who is raised in a family who thinks school is not important. They might have lack of enthusiasm to pass the test, thus, affecting the test result. Phillips (2006) has stated that measuring all students’ ability by one standardized test and expects a valid result is impossible. The ‘one size fits all’ test cannot be continued to be done as students’ ability measurement because every student has different background and none of the tests consider about this thing.

Another problem of standardized test as the only tool to measure students’ ability is schools tend to use the tested course to make their curriculums. Schools only teach subjects which are tested and how the subjects are tested becomes a way to teach the subjects because they want all students to pass the tests. This happens because sometimes schools rating determined by the total of students who can pass the standardized tests. If one school has more failed students than other schools, the schools will be labeled ‘need improvement’ school or even be shut down.  Moreover, if families in communities know that a school has low performance in a standardized test, they will move their children to other schools which have good reputation on standardized test (Phillips, 2006). This will make teachers organize their teaching instruction only on particular questions which may appear in a test and thus teach only on the superficial knowledge (Popham in Issue brief, 2006). Shepard (in Issue Brief, 2006) has stated that teaching based on test-like questions will misrepresents how much a student learn about a topic and if the students was given a different way question that assess the same skill, they often could not answer questions correctly. The ‘teaching to test’ has negative effects on teachers as well. According to a national survey of teachers, teachers who are forced to narrow their teaching only on test-like question may feel pressured because teaching that ways contradict their ideas. Not only they give less research and writing work assignment, but also they cannot use computers to teach writing because standardized test is handwritten (Pedulla et al in The Forum, 2010).

Furthermore, standardized tests often only measure superficial knowledge because most of the tests only focus on recall and recognition rather than application of the knowledge that students have learned in schools (The Forum, 2010). The students only have to memorize a test-like question during their study time and recognize the question type when they answer it during the test time. In addition, according to Phillips (2006) “language proficiency plays a large part in student performance on standardized test. In spite of differences in content, it may be that for certain test-takers language proficiency is the most important contributor to performance.”  This means that some countries focus on languages that students used in their assignment rather than assignment content that they have written. Moreover, Phillips also has stated that a true assessment would be made if students did the tests in their native language, therefore, students can be assessed based on their knowledge and not based on their vocabularies of languages (2006).

There are many things that may be done to measure an understanding of a student towards a subject in schools rather than heavily rely on a result of standardized test. For example, schools can assess students based on their performance during study time, research paper, science experiments, or all activities which involve direct evaluation of students’ effort on learning tasks. This kind of assessments will measure students’ ability better than one day standardized test performances. According to forumforeducation. org, the forum for education and democracy, notes that government should make an assessment system that can assess students based on their performance during study time and give task that can show their ability to solve problems, explain, and defend their ideas (2010). In addition, Briefings, the Independent Schools Queensland Journal, also has stated that an effective assessment is an assessment which makes students remember the information given to make an original product, active in a performance, or complete a process (2010).   

In conclusion, standardized test still can be conducted but it should not be the only tool to measure students’ ability in learning. This is because standardized test does not suit for all students who come from different family background, learning style, and motivation. Another reason is because school will make the success of test result as their goal, thus make their curriculum based on the test. Moreover, standardized tests only measure superficial knowledge rather than deep knowledge because they often focus only on language proficiency instead of the content, and students only have to memorize and recognize the test-like questions. Many things may be done if a school or government really needs to know students’ understanding of a subject in order to improve education systems of a country. For example, teacher observation, research paper, or students’ experiments and presentations. This assessment types will measure deep understanding of students towards their subject during their study time. In fact, if we continue to measure students’ learning ability based on a single performance on a standardized test, we will hinder educators’ efforts to create a better learning environment which can prepare children to be life-long and productive learners (The Forum, 2010). As Pedulla et al said “I have seen more students who can pass the test but cannot apply those skills to anything if it’s not in the test format” (2010). This statement implies that the standardized test only makes students learn skills to pass the test, but it does not prepare students for real application of those skills.