Relevance in Testing

Three stages mark the development of relevance in testing: relevance to the educational program, relevance to the individual student's past accomplishments, and relevance to the student's future accomplishments. If the College Entrance Examination Board should have to follow paths such as these, it has ahead of it the enormous job of transforming drastically the nature of its activities. Three possible stages are envisaged in the future development of the Board's tests: (1) for the Lnimediate future, an extension of the recent trend toward the diversity of programs and of tests within programs (this being the stage of the multiplex externalprogram); (2) a reduction of emphasis on external examinations and increased reliance on the record compiled by the student in his own school (this being the stage of the school-based program); and, (3) a system, eventually, of examinations in which each student is presented with the individual questions most pertinent to his past preparation and to his responses to test questions earlier in the sequence (this being the stage of the student-based program). It is held that the examination program should match both students and educational programs in diversity. (a) Relevance in Testing Wm. W. Turnbull Educational Testing Service.... U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION & WELFARE OFFICE OF EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRODUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGINATING IT, POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OF EDUCATION ,POSITION OR POLICY. 040 804 /eel( yor Ak#444 rtotta &## 06 Relevance in Testing William W. Turnbull Few agencies have survived since the turn of the century in America unless they have had a notable capacity for change. This proposition is true of agencies working in the field of education, as in other fields. Sir Eric Ashby has noted that, in order to survive, educational institutions must be both sufficiently stable and sufficiently responsive 1 -not an easy job! The College Entrance Examination Board, which has been a notably stable institution over the period since 1900, has at the same time been no stranger to change. The existence of this Commission demonstrates that the 1960's, and indeed the second half of the century, are likely to see the Board continuing as en institution responsive to changes in the social and institutional context in which it operates. The work of the Board has not been merely the mirror of change. It has also served as a powerful change agent in tis own right. In the Educational Testing Service Annual Report for 1961-622, it was pointed out 8 . that, during the lifetime of the SAT, more opportunities for higher education have been opened up for more students than ever before in this country. In the 1930's, the availability of the SAT provided the additional method needed for identifying able students sufficiently well to justify the award of very large national and regional .1111.01.1, 1. Ashby, Eric, Universities: British, Indian, Atrial!! (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1966), p. 3. 2. Educational Testing Service Annual Report 1961 -62, from Report of the President, pp. 44.46.