The tyranny of tests

England is not what it was, in many ways. Yet, only recently have I become aware of one way in which it has changed since my childhood.

I now live in Singapore and, having observed Singapore for a few years, I had come to the conclusion that Singaporeans are test mad. There is a test for everything and nothing is trusted unless it has been tested. I had come to view it as somewhat pathological - in the sense that it is far too prevalent to be healthy. Yet, that was before I came to know of the recent situation in the UK. If anything it is worse, there.

A UK student is now expected to take over 70 official tests from the age of 7 to the time they leave school. These are not, as far as I am aware, optional, in-house school testing, but obligatory mandatory, national testing.

I only became aware of this situation, not having lived in the UK since my children were born (apart from one stint), because of a proposal to end all such testing, that some brave political soul has tabled. It would probably be a good thing for British children were it to be enacted - but it is extremely unlikely, for the leaders of the educational establishment were quoted as being fully behind the test-taking tradition.

Let us look at what these tests do to children. With so many of them, there is forever another test coming up. There is ever the need to prepare for the next test. The focus of the students is on passing the test. There is never time or space to look around and see subjects in greater breadth or depth - there is only that which is in the test, in their minds. The consequence of an education that is nothing but a long series of tests is that the child is never truly educated. They are trained to do tests - and that is all. I have seen this phenomenon at work in Singapore which produces very good test takers...but not truly well-educated people: their minds have been too constricted by constant testing. The same unhealthy pressures have been constricting the minds of whole generations of British children while I wasn't looking. I don't imagine that it will lead to the national prosperity (and all the other things that politicians seek) that they imagine. Rather, it will lead to a nation unable to hold its place where once it reigned supreme.

Nothing should be allowed to stand in the way of the education of children - and most certainly not an official burden of over 70 tests per school career. How ridiculous.

(If you would like to read of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and six months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, three, and Tiarnan, sixteen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted children and gifed adults in general. Thanks.)

Ratio IQ estimation versus IQ tests

It occurs to me that ratio IQ estimation has a great advantage over IQ tests. All IQ tests have ceiling effects: a gifted child can easily bump against these ceilings or have their test score lowered without even bumping against them. The simple presence of a ceiling has a depressant effect on scoring.

So what can we do about this? Well, I would advise an older method of estimating IQ, used for assessing the IQs of people who were not able to be tested in any other ways: ratio IQ estimation.

Why is there an advantage to ratio IQ estimation, as detailed in the previous post? Well, there are NO ceiling effects and you are getting a true grasp of how gifted a child is. The estimate of IQ obtained by looking at ratio IQs may seem a rough guide - but it could prove far more accurate than measuring the more gifted children with a test that has a ceiling of some kind - even a high ceiling. The estimate you get will not have been capped by the ceiling of a test. In this way, we can be sure that the estimates of historic personages like William James Sidis - estimated at 250 to 300 - are accurate, in the sense that they are likely to be at least a threshold below which he could not have been, to have achieved what he did.

So, are we to throw away IQ tests? Well, perhaps for our most gifted, we should - because ALL IQ tests have natural ceilings and all will depress scores for the most gifted. This problem is now much more serious than it used to be, since, for reasons that are quite unfathomable, all modern tests are designed to lower the scores of gifted students. All of these tests will give an inaccurate assessment of any gifted child.

So, if you want a truer handle on your child's giftedness, calculate a ratio IQ: it will give a better insight into the true state of affairs, if your child is one of those who hits ceilings.

Raymond Ravaglia on out of level testing

As regular readers will know, Raymond Ravaglia, the Deputy Director of EPGY, the Education Program for Gifted Youth, at Stanford University recently gave a talk in Singapore.

He spoke of several things: one of them was his views on out-of-level testing. He considered this form of testing to be ill-conceived. In his eyes, there was no reason why a gifted child would be able to handle the material, for it was unlikely that the gifted child would have covered the material. It didn't make any sense to him that a child should be tested on material the child was probably unaware of. This was, in his opinion, very likely to generate a "false negative" - that is a child would be marked as "non-gifted" by an out of level test, simply because they had never met the material before when, in fact, they were gifted.

Raymond Ravaglia thought that it was wiser to design tests which were in-level, in the sense of being of material covered by the child at the relevant age, but which were designed to be more challenging in their presentation of questions. In this way, a child would not be penalized for not having covered a particular curriculum and would have the opportunity to show their gift, without distortion. He thought that this was much more likely to give a positive result for a gifted child and would not lead to false negatives, and loss of opportunity for the gifted child.

I had rather come to Raymond Ravaglia's view, myself, when first introduced to the idea of out-of-level testing - but it is interesting to see this opinion held by someone working in the American University system. The reasoning on the issue is sound...so why then does the practise of out-of-level testing persist?

Out-of-level testing is based on a misconception about what a gifted child is. A gifted child is a more intelligent child than an average one and is able to learn faster. Yet, a gifted child is not a miracle worker. If the child has not been exposed to the curriculum in question, one cannot expect that child to perform according to their true ability. They will under-perform if the curriculum is new.

My son, Ainan, has been subject to "out-of-level" testing in his area of Chemistry. In his case, the procedure is OK because he does, in fact, have much knowledge of Chemistry beyond his age range. In this case, the practise may be appropriate. Yet, in most cases, such a form of testing is likely to lead to a mismeasure of the child - and therefore should be avoided. If the child does have out-of-level knowledge - then test away. If the child has great ability but does not have out-of-level knowledge then such testing is really going to be harmful.

So, think carefully before consenting to such testing: the results could compromise your child's future and close doors that might have been opened by a different kind of testing.

(If you would like to read about Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and three months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, three, and Tiarnan, thirteen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted children and gifted adults in general. Thanks.)