Standardised tests are just no good
Standardised testing has long been scrutinised for its inability to effectively assess students with diverse learning needs and cognitive processing styles. Whilst analyses by the likes of Peter Greene expose the systemic pitfalls these tests pose, an equally pressing issue resides in the outsized influence testing regimes wield in driving educational policies and practices counter to research-validated best practices.
Rather than serving as just one measure amongst many to inform teaching, in many systems, standardised tests have become instructional straight jackets. The need to “teach to the test” compromises pedagogical quality for all students. Curricula narrow towards tested topics, depths of understanding shrink to what limited item types can assess, and enrichment gives way to vapid test prep targeting the memorisation and recall of discrete skills in isolation.
In the quest to maximise test outcomes, educators sacrifice the creativity, critical analysis, and interdisciplinarity long understood as essential to meaningful learning. Students lose exposure to subjects and ways of constructing knowledge beyond reductive reading and maths evaluations. Even instruction in tested domains becomes formulaic and sterile.
In short, as menacing as the biases inherent in these tests are, the harsher reality is that these regimes impoverish learning for all minds subjected to them. As systems predicate resources, opportunities, and self-worth on test scores, these measures corrupt the essence of equitable, empowering education in ways that far transcend any single cognitive style. Re-centering policy conversations around reclaiming learning from the death-grip of standardisation is imperative.
What’s being tested?
Standardised tests, by their very design, assess the dimensions of intelligence and academic competency most associated with analytic laguage processors (ALPs). Test makers prioritise qualities like speed of response, accuracy in applying formulaic steps, and selection of the single “correct” solution to constrained problems from predefined options. Entire sub-fields within psychology have specialised in optimizing assessments for such discrete capacities.
Yet these strengths for detail-focused ALP minds come at the expense of excluding gifted individuals who, like me, process the world in gestalts (GLPs). Open-ended exploration fuels discovery for GLP thinkers who thrive when freely connecting concepts across disciplines, integrating insights from diverse sources, and uncovering hidden patterns - all on our own timetable. Constraining such multidirectional inquiry into rigid durations governed by clocks or calendars disrupts the inspired flow states characteristic of peak GLP cognition.
Worse still, selective response items inherently limit the demonstration of excellence. GLP giftedness manifests in manifold solutions, each with nuanced virtues shining light on the richness of complex problems that exceed a solo “right way.” Yet test makers traditionally designate single, canned responses as the standards against which all students are uniformly judged. No room exists for showcasing exceptional pluralistic reasoning or creativity exceeding expectations.
In effect, standardised testing protocols deliberately ‘handicap’ minds that deviate from analytic norms. They disrupt the autonomy and inspiration that fuels celebrated innovations and discoveries associated with atypical, synergistic intellects. Conformity gets rewarded; divergence punished. In the process, society loses access to the immeasurable talents of differently wired thinkers whose potential lies locked beyond the narrow constraints that rendered these tests purposeful for the analytic majority. Our limited assessments become mechanisms that perpetuate unrecognised loss on a systemic scale.
Poorly written multiple choice questions, ugh!
Multiple choice and short answer test items intrinsically limit demonstration of the unconventional reasoning and problem-solving strengths frequently exhibited by gestalt processors. By design, these selectively responsive formats presuppose a singular “right” pre-determined solution arising from linear, convergent logic. Yet gestalt cognition thrives through unconstrained, divergent ideation that interweaves insights from diverse disciplines and perspectives.
Their brilliance manifests in manifold solutions, each with uniquely redeeming virtues that shine light on the multidimensional facets underpinning complex questions. However, test scoring rubrics recognise only preset responses, routinely scoring ingenious gestalt answers as “wrong” when deviating from narrowly defined expectations. Even formulas for assigning partial credit on constructed responses struggle to capture layers of understanding exceeding standards calibrated to analytic thinking.
These assessments become especially problematic when evaluating the frequent leaps in diagonal or synergistic reasoning through which gestalt minds uncover novel patterns and connections between seemingly disparate concepts. What appears as erratic wandering guided by idiosyncratic instincts more often reflects purposeful, profoundly meaningful exploration beyond the limits of convention. Yet structurally inflexible tests cannot distinguish innovation from error.
Thus, selectively responsive formats used on most standardised tests structurally inhibit the demonstration of multivariate gestalt cognition. Constraining observation to pre-established metrics, such narrow focus obscures the growth opportunities hidden within divergent thinking. Tragically, the farther test makers standardise assessments in hopes of universal validity and reliability, the more they compromise fair representations of multidimensional intellects. In the quest for efficient data, irrevocable gifts go unrecognised and untapped for the enrichment of all.
Standardised tests vs. the “interest-based nervous system”
The subject matter emphasised on most standardised tests frequently bears little relevance to the innate passions and preoccupations that drive learning for gestalt-oriented thinkers. As discussed, intense interests in narrowly focused domains catalyde self-directed scholarship exceeding the bounds of any standardised curriculum. Yet tests concentrate exclusively on uniform standards often disconnected from individuated passions.
Because gestalt minds orient information and environments around niche fascinations as scaffolds for processing data and relating concepts (e.g, I wrote Holistic Language Instruction as a scaffold to support my taking / passing the RICA test), assessing disembodied content with no personal significance compromises meaningful demonstration of skills. When deprived of contextual hooks linking new input to existing knowledge frameworks, many disengage from the meaningless noise bombarding their sensory channels.
Subsequently, scores yielded from disenchanted test takers reveal nothing regarding capacities for assimilating and innovating around concepts carrying intrinsic motivational value. Just as forcing irrelevant texts and artificial word problems illicit limited reading comprehension data from gestalt-inclined students, all standardised testing content divorced from PASSIONS and strengths elicits meaningless, uninterpretable results.
Indeed, the more test makers strive to ensure standardised content evenly reflects agreed upon disciplinary standards, the less likely stimuli resonates as salient with those processing information along diverse associative pathways. Neutrality yields disengagement. By deliberately avoiding nurturing the idiosyncratic interests and schemata vital for scaffolding gestalt gifts, these fixed measures neither capture abilities nor foster future growth for multifaceted minds.
As such, the content enshrined through standardised testing protocols reflects a disturbing philosophical narrowness about what constitutes legitimate knowledge. Privileging uniform benchmarks above individually meaningful skills and creative productivity compounds the marginalisation of atypical intellects. And in depriving society of the fruits born of myriad passions, we all suffer loss.
Set up for failure?
Beyond content and format, the tightly-controlled environments in which standardised tests occur provoke immense distress in many GLPs, severely impeding performance. Though created in pursuit of uniformity and fairness, the excessive regulations around permitted behaviours during testing paradoxically jeopardise accurate measurement of true capacities.
For neurodivergent learners, rigid exam constraints designed to minimise distraction for the majority population often trigger overwhelming sensory overload, anxiety, and fight-flight reactivity. Inflexibly enforced rules eliminate mechanisms GLPs rely on to self-regulate emotions and stimuli intake amid stressful situations. Forbidden movement breaks, noise-cancelling headphones, fidget devices and more strip them of coping outlets for releasing extreme pressure.
Subsequently, executive functions essential for demonstrating one’s gifts--like working memory, problem analysis, impulse control and more--get impaired or paralysed. Cognition becomes consumed by countering the neurological chaos induced by the heavily controlled environment itself. All cognitive bandwidth directs inward for stabilisation, leaving inadequate resources to actually respond to test content successfully.
In effect, conventional exam conditions throw gestalt-inclined minds into states antithetical to controlled reasoning. By denying test-takers the agency to self-determine appropriate settings and supports, these powerfully adverse environments default to inducing failure. They falsely pathologise a spectrum of diverse thinkers based on performance measures reflecting neither actual nor potential abilities when provided the necessary individualised settings to thrive. Hence, demands for standardisation in the name of fairness only heighten systemic ableism and prohibition of neurodiversity.
Wrapping it up
To review, the immutable parameters enshrined through standardised testing protocols privilege the demonstration of competencies most closely associated with analytic cognition - speed of processing, accuracy in formulaic tasks, and selection amongst constrained options. Yet the quest for efficient measurability through uniform skill evaluation inherently comes at the expense of providing valid and reliable insights on minds operating outside these narrow constraints.
By deliberately minimising variability in administration and response modes, these fixed assessments disproportionately handicap those exhibiting strengths through multidirectional reasoning, nonlinear process-orientation, and multifaceted solution derivation. In effect, the tighter test makers regulate conditions to optimise reliability for the analytic majority, the less generalisable or equitable results become for gestalt and other neurodivergent outliers.
Problematically, as long as education policy continues predicating access and opportunities on standardised metrics bearing little relationship to gestalt aptitudes, we inadvertently sanction the systematic pathologisation and exclusion of extremely gifted individuals based on meaningless scores. However well-intentioned, lacking conceptual validity linking results to the learning needs, abilities or untapped potential of diverse minds, these tests cannot avoid producing discriminatory impacts.
What is needed are alternate assessment models designed from the outset to capture talents frequently associated with gestalt processing. Evaluating aptitudes ignored through conventional testing like intersectional reasoning, inventive skill application, solution multiplicity, and eloquent communication of connections across complex concepts gets imperative. Strategies may include portfolios of interdisciplinary work samples, juried presentations before panels of specialists, and rich qualitative appraisals from those familiar with individual passions.
In effect, honouring diverse minds requires wholly reinventing standardised testing formulas still rooted in antiquated, rigid conventions from an era oblivious to modern understandings of neurocognition. Only by pioneering more holistic yet reliable protocols for identifying aptitudes and learning profiles across the full spectrum can we foster educational policies and practices that empower every student. The paths are uncharted, but our shared future demands the expedition begin now.