The Educational Testing Service (ETS) launched its new Graduate Record Examination (GRE) format, which will be offered for the first time in September this year. Many students have complained the new format is a test of endurance (Stanford Daily News 2.6.06); the GRE will now take 4 hours, over an hour longer than the old test. According to the ETS, the primary reasons for changing the format are security concerns and to reduce the effects of memorization on the verbal section.
However, aside from the seemingly never ending debates about how to address the concerns about the test’s viability as a predictor for graduate success and its racial and ethnic bias, it seems that the more important question is to ask why students have to take such a test at all. David Payne, executive director of the GRE program, among other ETS officials, have claimed that the test will more accurately test the key skills necessary at the graduate level. But why does the higher education system need to employ the help of a testing service to devise such a tool anyway? What is the undergraduate experience for?
Although, clearly, the nature of graduate education differs in some key ways from the undergraduate experience; such as more developed research skills, a greater level of intrinsic motivation for independent learning, etc., a test, no matter how long it is or how psychometrically reliable and valid it is statistically, cannot demonstrate such abilities. College is as much about psycho-social adjustment as it is academic aptitude. Moreover, part of the function of graduate school is to teach students the academic and practical skills their discipline requires.
One would think that a sound undergraduate training should lay a foundation such that any student who has proved themselves deserves a shot at the next level. The same is true for the transition from high school to college. If a student has met all the national and state educational requirements at the high school level, and has excelled, why should they take another test to again prove themselves worthy?
It seems that these tests are merely being used as a quick screening tool for colleges to sort through the ever increasing number of applications they receive at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Hiring admissions staff to evaluate other already available materials that could be included in college applications, such as writing samples or examples of students work, is probably an expense colleges are not prepared to incorporate in their budgets.
Also, there appears to be a profound distrust of the reliability and quality of the education system itself, otherwise there would be no need to argue for ‘standardized’ tests. Why can’t we conclude that a diploma or degree awarded by an accredited institution is of a generalizable, acceptable standard nationwide? If a student has passed their general education and major requirements, how could they have failed to acquire the skills the GRE is claiming to test, critical thinking, verbal reasoning, analytic writing, etc?
Why is there a concern that an ‘A’ given at one institution differs from an ‘A’ given at another institution? And can these problems, which lie at the heart of America’s education system, be addressed with standardized tests? Moreover, should it be the students that repeatedly foot the bill for the failures of educators and administrators to implement the types of educational reform that this country so obviously needs?
