Examining Freedle's Claims About Bias and His Proposed Solution: Dated Data, Inappropriate Measurement, and Incorrect and Unfair Scoring

ABSTRACT In the Spring 2003 issue of Harvard Educational Review , Roy Freedle stated that the SAT® is both culturally and statistically biased, and he proposed a solution to ameliorate this bias. His claims, which garnered national attention, were based on serious errors in his analysis. We begin our analyses by assessing the psychometric properties of Freedle's recommended hard half‐test that he thinks should form the basis for the supplemental SAT score he proposes to report. Next we demonstrate his justification for a score based on this half‐test is based on a flawed analysis. The numbers in his critical Table 2 do not represent what he claims they do. We then demonstrate what occurs when current data are used with both the correct scoring and the incorrect scoring proposed by Freedle. When the table is constructed correctly using current data, the effects that Freedle reported are reduced substantially in magnitude to the point where they do not warrant any of the corrective actions he proposes. We conclude our analysis of Freedle's claims with DIF analyses of our own that are inconsistent with his DIF analyses of old SAT test editions he used as his initial motivation for correcting the SAT scoring procedure.