Here are your laptops. Do not open them until I have instructed you to do so. You will have 50 minutes to complete this portion of the test. There will be no talking, and no one is allowed to leave the classroom. You may use any spelling or grammatical tools available to you on your word processor. If you finish early, please sit quietly. Any questions? Alright, you may open your laptops and begin this portion of the test. Good luck.
Could you image? Taking the writing MEAP test in 11th grade and being able to use a computer? I remember when I had to take the writing MEAP junior year. My entire class crowded into our auditorium with clip boards and sat in the fold-down theater seats, where we were asked to do our best writing for the MEAP. No desk to write on, only a handful of dictionaries and thesauruses to share with everyone, and the worst case of writer’s-cramp I’ve ever encountered. Of course I wanted to do well and write my best on the test—I’m sure many of my peers did too. But given the testing conditions and the fact that as students of the 21st century we were used to typing more of our essays on computers, the majority of my class did not perform well on the writing MEAP.
This article sparked my memory back to the testing situation I just described, and I began to wonder: how would allowing students to use computers for standardized tests affect achievement? What are the implications of this move towards technology in testing? The article excerpts below discuss some of my questions.
On Writing Tests, Computer’s Slowly Making Mark
By Sean Cavanagh, journalist
Education Week Magazine
February 14, 2007
In recognition of that technological progression, a number of states have incorporated computer-based testing into their writing assessments. Other states are piloting ways of using technology to gauge writing. The movement to assess writing on computers also could grow if the directors of the influential National Assessment of Educational Progress act on a proposal to replace the handwritten test of writing at the 8th and 12th grade levels with a computerized exam.
Testing students’ writing ability via computer makes sense, some assessment officials from around the country say, not only because of students’ widespread familiarity with computers, but also because of the demands of college and the workplace, where word-processing skills are a must.
“You want a connection between what’s going on in the outside world and what’s going on in the classroom,” said Kathleen Blake Yancey, the vice president of the National Council of Teachers of English, an Urbana, Ill.-based organization that seeks to improve teaching and learning in that subject. The Florida State University English professor served on an expert committee studying proposed changes to NAEP.
“It’s a way of saying to schools, ‘The 21st century has arrived,’ ” she said.
Questions about whether it’s appropriate for students to be able to use spelling and grammatical tools on a test that’s supposed to be measuring their writing abilities is still up for debate.
Of course, the idea of bringing computers into standardized testing also raises questions of equality and discrimination. What about students who don’t have frequent access to computers and aren’t skilled typists? What about the quality of the computer education in each district, and the amount of computers available within the school per student? Allowing students to use computers on tests, according to the article, may have biased implications.
“It will not make the gap between white and minority students go away. In fact, it may make it larger,” said Edward D. Roeber, the executive director of assessment and accountability for the Michigan education department, which has piloted a computerized writing test but has not made a decision on using it statewide. “For kids who have never had the opportunity [to work on computers], I don’t think they’ll do as well.”
The article goes on to explain that there is still a great deal of research needed to determine how implementing this type of testing style will affect test scores. Economic costs also need to be considered. However, this is something that’s being worked on and is a possibility in the future.
Although this article is slightly off topic for ENG 311 (it would fit nicely into ENG 310!), I still feel like it’s a worth-while topic for me to think about in the world of English and standardized testing. If students are used to reading online blogs, responding to texts online via discussion boards, and creating assignments using a computer—doesn’t it make sense that eventually our tests need to make a move in the direction of technology as well? How can we encourage integration of technology and computer literacy in the classroom, yet still demand that students hand-write lengthy essays for the MEAP test? There seem to be both positives and negatives to either side of this debate, but I was really excited that I came across this article, as I think it will be one that heavily affects my classroom in the future.
You’re absolutely right. The need to shift to a computer-based assessment is obvious. When was the last time any teacher allowed a handwritten paper to be submitted for grading? It just doesn’t happen anymore at any level. Students are using computers from the moment they enter school so I don’t feel the argument regarding discrimination is a valid one. Sure, some students are going to be more familiar with computer technology, but this should not affect their knowledge application for writing or even their ability to take a standardized exam on the computer. Schools and educators have always been afraid of change and it has gone on long enough. It’s time for schools to embrace the technology of the 21st century.