Do standardized tests matter? | Nathan Kuncel | TEDxUMN

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Nowadays everyone seems ready to bash standardized testing. In this talk, Nathan Kuncel reveals that there is, actually, quite a lot we can learn from them.
Nathan Kuncel is the Marvin D. Dunnette Distinguished Professor of Industrial-Organizational Psychology at the University of Minnesota where he also earned his doctorate. Nathan's research focuses broadly on how individual characteristics (intelligence, personality,interests) influence subsequent academic, work, and life success. His research has been discussed in the news including CNN, NPR, Chicago Tribute, and the Times of London. He received the Cattell Award from the Society of Multivariate Experimental Psychology, the Anastasi Award from the American Psychological Association, and is a Fellow of SIOP. Nathan is an enthusiastic triathlete which barely lets him keep up with his kids.
About TEDx, x = independently organized event In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

[@JurijFedorov]

Why are there so many Ted talks in terrible quality? How hard is it to buy a good camera and set up good sound?

[@dustystahn3855]

What is the standard for standardized tests? How was the standard determined? Who has this amazing gift of omniscience to know what every person should know at any given age? Who considers the test scores to be important and for what purpose? I have asked these questions many times have not received any rational answer

[@cl10367]

See Psychometrician. There is an entire science behind constructing these sort of tests.

[@morganyankovich6387]

So this reply is about three years late but I'm taking a tests and measurements class that is talking about this. The book we are using is "Tests and Measurements for People Who (Think They) Hate Tests and Measurements" which is a great resource to help answer some of your questions. There's also a book by James Popham that talks about this stuff called, "The Truth About Testing".

[@martinhill7304]

So that study showed that standardised tests 15 years ago were useful, and had a bunch of charts with the X-axis not very clearly explained?

[@bobthornton8282]

It would be clear if you were capable of scoring highly on a standardized test

[@TheVoltman1]

Hey, I don't get this video. Can someone explain this to me? Why aren't top 10% SAT score achievers who come from the bottom 25% income-earning bracket of family households (17%) applying for college admissions in top universities?

[@jayfel104]

Because no one wants loan debt, especially talented low SES students. If they really wanted and needed this bright students, then give them scholarships and grants

[@shaunna6102]

I'm here for a class, but had to pop in to agree that Janeway was so much better!

[@theak-1663]

Test were not as bad 5 years ago with multiple choice but now due to the new technology it makes it "better" by making it more complicated and confusing, and as taking the test on the first year It came out on my 8th grade year I decided to try my best because high school was right around the corner and as I did the test I wanted to ripe my hair out, test are inaccurate due to amount of stress they give you. Especially the new ones on Chromebook, which by the way is not my favorite OS.

[@jclaer]

I suggest you re-record with a decent sound system.

[@GM4ThePeople]

Easier: run the audio through Audacity or similar audio processing software to remove the echo & improve the audio in various ways.

[@zadeh79]

They should have predicted my 4.0 in college, or selling computer programs to large companies - they didn't. I always scored between 35-50th percentile, largely due to reading difficulty, with IQ 'about' 100. IQ is just a glorified short-term memory test, and needs to be replaced with heuristic-analytic models. Abstraction breaks down in complex problems, where intuition and heuristics have to work efficiently to maintain elements, before they become integrated into a novel relationship. This is why APPLIED problems (such as math world problems), have a weaker correlation with IQ; where selecting and ordering elements is important to forming a solution. Dealing with complexity requires a level of computational persistence in long-term memory. Standardized tests are backwards, and fail many creative students.

[@nehorlavazapalka]

+Ztech you don't have 100, that means ur a liar, so your whole post is about 100 % full of lies, nice try

[@JurijFedorov]

+Ztech These tests are to predict group behaviour.

[@DavidAndrewsPEC]

+Ztech " IQ is just a glorified short-term memory test" That is a dumb-fuck type of remark. Say what you like - you're still fucking wrong.

[@zadeh79]

David Andrews You should rationalized the matter, before you throw out your pathetic objection, against my sound argument. "You're wrong" doesn't sway anyone's opinion towards your position. Instead it highlights your own bias in the matter, and your ignorance on the subject. Because you're overweight, stuck in a basement, without a real job or direction, and have a grandiose sense of intellect resting on an inflated number (IQ), is your own problem.

[@nehorlavazapalka]

where's your 100 iq (on what test, btw).... and yes, go fuck yourself

[@daviddesconnet]

Correlation shows a link between two things but it doesn't explain why and is extremely context dependent. But we don't keep a record of those context.

[@TheWinterShadow]

Standardized testing is a business...that is why it exist. ETS, the company which 'own's the GRE has made billions...what's worst is that few people in academia, who are intelligent enough to know it are not saying enough about it. Most don't care.

[@nal8503]

It's blatantly obvious without any statistical analysis that test scores can be used for predictions. Someone with high test scores is either extremely intelligent to deduce results without study, or has enough discipline to successfully take a test. The better the results, the stronger this correlation is. With either of these traits combined with high test scores, it's a given, that these people will succeed somewhere around the range of their abilities. The question of interest is not, whether high test scores can tell us anything, but rather why some of the most intelligent people in the world have low test scores and thus subsequently end up not accomplishing anything due to the nature of university and job applications. If you title a study's result as "Do standardized tests matter?" and then only talk about how high test scores correlate to success in a positive way, the idiots sitting in our countries' educational departments will inevitably use this study as a legitimation of not having to do their job. It's a fact, that a lot of really intelligent people will end up wasting their potential due to standardized testing and a poor education system which does not care about bringing out the potential in its students. Needless to stay, this is a massive loss for the entire human population. tl;dr scientists need to learn how to science (and stop being oblivious to the implications of a statistic)

[@kylecaudill9261]

I may be misquoting this but I believe Jordan Peterson said there's like 33 traits that indicate success and intelligence is only one. There are any other number of personality traits that can also be predictors for success, which all together are a better indicator of success than intelligence alone. Just food for thought. And more food for thought, I feel like all this blaming standardized testing is just a cop out for teachers who can't teach and parents who can't parent. A progressively failing Society pointing fingers at everyone but themselves for failing their children. Yes, standardized tests are uncomfortable, but they aren't unbeatable. Teachers even have the standards that align with the standardized tests which provide a guideline to what their children will be tested on and the major of their kids still barely pass. I'm an early childhood education major and I have had a unique look at some of the issues with our educational system, on all levels.

[@datscrazy4095]

@@kylecaudill9261 key word *_major_*

[@GM4ThePeople]

Go go Golden Gophers

[@edwardlo4167]

My IO professor

[@JurijFedorov]

+Edward Lo Your IO professor, Lo?

[@bobthornton8282]

The problem with showing data is you're speaking to reason. Only the intelligent people who score well on standardized tests will understand the argument. The rest will be left just as dumbfounded as the tests left them.

[@matikamc2]

Oh yes...the reality is that there are no perfect linear relationships in human studies! If only I had known that earlier!

[@LeondeBeer]

Sorry, but Jean-Luc Picard was the best captain ;-D

[@jannorman2091]

I think that they entirely missed the point. Whereas before students did well because they had learned those things, teachers are now teaching to these tests.

[@DavidAndrewsPEC]

+Jan Norman If the purpose of the test is to test what people have learned during a course of study, and that test covers the whole domain of material taught in that course, if a teacher _doesn't_ teach to the test, the teacher is fucking the students over! If the test is aimed at measuring the level of skill performance in students as a result of the course of study previously undergone by the student, and the teacher has not been teaching those skills and helping to improve them, then that teacher has been fuckng the students over. Looks like YOU'VE been the one missing the fucking point.

[@jannorman2091]

David Andrews You're missing the point, which is that they are teaching memorization and not the practical application of concepts, which is why people are lacking practical skills so often.

[@DavidAndrewsPEC]

Jan Norman You're still wrong. I trained in psychology, including psychometrics. What you say is not true - they're not just about memory. In fact - most subtests on an IQ test are anything BUT memory: only the Arithmetic subtest in the Wechsler suite deals with memory, and that's about using short-term memory as well as extracting salient information. Practical skills are tested in aptitude tests. Intelligence is raw ability. Aptitude is applied ability. And that is a separate domain of testing.

[@jannorman2091]

David Andrews I've been a teacher for ten years. My students are top performers and I see it all the time. They do well on their tests, but at the expense of cramming, because the frequency of these standardized tests is too great. I can appreciate your theory, but till you try it in the classroom, you won't get it. That's the problem. Non-teachers think they have a grip on what's going on in classrooms, which is how we got into the current mess we're in as an education system. Memorizing how to spell a word isn't the same as being able to understand it phonetically and being able to sound it out.

[@DavidAndrewsPEC]

Jan Norman And I've been an educational psychologist for ten years. You are STILL wrong on what the tests are about. I was also a teacher: mathematics. So I understand very much the issue of practical skills. As well as what goes on in the class room. What the hell is your obsession with 'memorising' things? And why is it a bloody problem? In mathematics - if you cannot memorise a formula, you cannot perform the task that requires the formula. With regard to spelling - memorising the spelling of a word may not say much about soemone's understanding of the word directly, but that process of remembering the spelling is essential for recognising the word in a written or textual source of information. You work on the spelling - to - phonetics thing once the spelling is correct, and then you link that to a picture (usually prototypical) of the object, or some representation of the word if it is not a noun. But memorising the spelling is fucking important. How the hell does a teacher not KNOW that?