Newsletter

September 2001

President Atkinsons’ Opposition to the use of SAT I

John Furedy

Like Richard Atkinson, I
am an experimental psychologist (though a far less distinguished one) rather
than a differential psychologist who has specialized in psychological test
theory. However, I recall enough from my undergraduate courses to recognize
that the validity of a test is assessed not by speculating that it “can
have a devastating impact on self-esteem and aspirations of young students”
(“Use of SAT I ‘Compromises Education System’ Says UC President”, Observer,
April 2001), but by determining to what extent performance on the test
is correlated with some defined criterion performance (here, academic success
in a prestigeous university).

Nor is this correlation with
criterion performance expected to be perfect, so that there may well be
factors other than sheer cognitive ability in analogical reasoning (factors
such as socio-economic class, home environment, and, of course, motivation
– recall that living organisms and not computers are being tested) that
contribute to test performance. In terms of this normal, scientific criterion
of validity, the SAT I, to my knowledge, is a useful instrument, and specialists
in psychological test construction have, over the years, improved its validity,
though not to any level of perfect prediction. So from the perspective
of psychological test theory, I see no rational grounds for Atkinson’s
recommendation to abandon the SAT I.

Atkinson also advances a
more general, educational argument for dropping the SAT I. He avers that
it “compromises the education system”, and, besides the SAT II (which,
he feels, is a better measure than the SAT I – to my knowledge he advances
no systematic evidence for this comparative empirical claim about two psychological
tests), he suggests that selectors should rely on “grade point average,
activity records, and other more ‘holistic’ measures of students’ achievement”.

I cannot help noting that
the latter two aspects appear to be more related to how well a student
can get along with others, rather than to what extent s/he has been able
to master various academic disciplines.

Moreover, the North American
high school system lacks state-wide standard examinations as exist, for
example, in Australia. Grade points, then, are at least partly determined
by how much individual teachers like individual students, and hence,
in more crude terms, may simply indicate sucking-up, rather than academic,
ability. In my view, it is the use of these more subjective and “holistic”
measures of student achievement (together with race- and sex-based quotas
intended to produce ‘diversity’) that really “compromise the education
system”.

Letter
published in American Psychological Society Observer, July-August, 2001,
p.2.