A Closer Look at Standardized Tests

It is commonly argued that teachers should use scores from standardized tests to facilitate instruction. Specifically, teachers are encouraged to use standardized test results to evaluate student achievement on both a group and individual level, to identify students with learning problems, and to assess the effectiveness of instructional strategies that have been used. The use of standardized tests for any of these functions, however, must be tempered by the teacher's knowledge of the extent to which the content of the test parallels the content of instruction.