Sierra's post got me interested in the evolution of tests, specifically regarding college.
First of all, the SAT stands for Scholastic Aptitude Test (I didn't even know that is what SAT stood for until just now).
A Brief Overview of the Development
If you read Sierra's post, college admittance tests used to be unique to each university, and tested a wide variety of topics. In attempts to standardize the process, the CollegeBoard (everyone's favorite institution) was formed in 1900 by the presidents of twelve universities. Then, during World War I, Robert Yerkes administered IQ tests to army recruits to select the most intelligent of the bunch. Following this experiment, he presented the idea to educational institutions to persuade them to adopt this form of testing. In 1926, Carl Brigham, a partner of Yerkes, developed a test that could be used by colleges to assess the mental ability of high school students, and the first test was given that year.
Major Events that Popularized the SAT
1933: The SAT was used a scholarship test for all Ivy League schools.
1952: The verbal section as we know it (reading comprehension, analogies, antonyms, sentence completion questions) is created.
1960: The University of California system adopts the SAT as a required portion of the application.
To view the full timeline go to: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/where/timeline.html.
The Test
The first test consisted of nine subsets with 315 questions to be completed in 97 minutes. If the 0.6 minutes per question was hard, this pace was about twice as fast. From looking at the test (linked below), it seemed to ask questions using matching, patterns, free response, identification, true or false, and analogies, a lot of evaluation techniques we still use today. This is a major shift in format compared to the 1900 test which involved essay responses.
Click this link to see what the first SAT administered in 1926 looked like: http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/local/scholastic-aptitude-test-from-1926/940/
The Transformations
Over time, the SAT has undergone many changes. Next year, the SAT will be redesigned again to create a test that emphasizes critical thinking more. It is interesting how testing styles seem to fall in a cycle. As Mr. Stewart said about a month ago, tests seem to be shifting from a general information one to one focused on critical and reflective thinking and back again. Originally, the college admittance test was a more reflective one, until the SAT was designed to ask simpler, less in-depth questions, and now they are shifting back to the reflective thinking.
First of all, the SAT stands for Scholastic Aptitude Test (I didn't even know that is what SAT stood for until just now).
A Brief Overview of the Development
If you read Sierra's post, college admittance tests used to be unique to each university, and tested a wide variety of topics. In attempts to standardize the process, the CollegeBoard (everyone's favorite institution) was formed in 1900 by the presidents of twelve universities. Then, during World War I, Robert Yerkes administered IQ tests to army recruits to select the most intelligent of the bunch. Following this experiment, he presented the idea to educational institutions to persuade them to adopt this form of testing. In 1926, Carl Brigham, a partner of Yerkes, developed a test that could be used by colleges to assess the mental ability of high school students, and the first test was given that year.
Major Events that Popularized the SAT
1933: The SAT was used a scholarship test for all Ivy League schools.
1952: The verbal section as we know it (reading comprehension, analogies, antonyms, sentence completion questions) is created.
1960: The University of California system adopts the SAT as a required portion of the application.
To view the full timeline go to: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/where/timeline.html.
The Test
The first test consisted of nine subsets with 315 questions to be completed in 97 minutes. If the 0.6 minutes per question was hard, this pace was about twice as fast. From looking at the test (linked below), it seemed to ask questions using matching, patterns, free response, identification, true or false, and analogies, a lot of evaluation techniques we still use today. This is a major shift in format compared to the 1900 test which involved essay responses.
Click this link to see what the first SAT administered in 1926 looked like: http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/local/scholastic-aptitude-test-from-1926/940/
The Transformations
Over time, the SAT has undergone many changes. Next year, the SAT will be redesigned again to create a test that emphasizes critical thinking more. It is interesting how testing styles seem to fall in a cycle. As Mr. Stewart said about a month ago, tests seem to be shifting from a general information one to one focused on critical and reflective thinking and back again. Originally, the college admittance test was a more reflective one, until the SAT was designed to ask simpler, less in-depth questions, and now they are shifting back to the reflective thinking.
This is a really great post, Olivia! I loved how you were able to find a link to the original SAT test. I think it's interesting to see the change in a test like this overtime. Comparing these changes to the other changes in testing that are taking place now, like with the SBAC, I see a lot of similarities. It's fascinating to see how these companies are trying to measure intelligence and academic success.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Olivia! I was curious about the redesigned SAT and found that it is completely different. They are cutting down the vocabulary testing and changing the math concepts. They are also completely cutting the guessing penalty. With the new style, the test will actually end up looking a lot more like the ACT.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the great post, Olivia! Another change in the SAT was its renaming in 1993 to the "Scholastic Assessment Test." Critics were worried that the name was misleading, since the test was no longer considered a test of raw intelligence (aptitude). Rather, it was transforming into a test of critical thinking and achievement. Like you mentioned in your post, it's really interesting how we see these recurring patterns in testing as society's priorities and views on education change.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post, Olivia. Interestingly enough, the SAT no longer stands for anything; like Sierra said, it doesn't exactly test aptitude, so they decided to just take away the meaning of the name. I wrote an article for the Talon on the recent changes to the new SAT, and my co-writer and I found that the SAT is becoming more like the ACT partially for monetary reasons; the ACT has become evermore popular, and the SAT needs to "level the playing field" for students taking standardized tests. Although the SAT essay is now "optional," many students will probably still take it, as they do with the "optional" essay in the ACT.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! It is interesting because today the SAT/ACT is a huge part of our college application process and knowing how it has evolved can be helpful to doing better at it.
ReplyDeleteOne interesting thing that I noticed, was the evolution of the SAT based upon how society has evolved and thought was important at the time. At first it was just IQ based, then writing was added, and finally now critical thinking. Society at first wanted just smart people who knew things, then they wanted to know who could also right, and now people want to know if people can think through things.
Thanks for researching this topic, Olivia! It's so pertinent to our lives today that we should really know how this test has changed in order to fit the shifting times. I especially love the historical context of the gradual adaptations. I thought the 1960 change was especially cool, where all the UC's required the SAT for the application. My thinking was that perhaps this factor funneled students being accepted to the universities, and allowed only more educated, aware students. Maybe this contributed to the political activeness on college campuses, especially UC Berkeley, in the 1960s?
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