Merit (1920-1945)
Acievement to Aptitude
By shifting away from ... measures of institutional effectiveness and toward a test of an individual's learning capability, the [College] Board simultaneously would reduce conflict over who controlled the secondary school curriculum and would enable colleges to make better judgments about prospective students
Marvin Lazerson
"The College Board and American Educational History"
Because of the emergence of psychometrics and questions over the appropriate curriculum for preparation for higher education, the context in which post-secondary institutions and the College Board operated changed. As historian Marvin Lazerson notes, this shifted the authority from school people to experts in educational measurement and to college admissions personnel. When the College Board emphasized its aptitude tests, "testing and measurement knowledge, rather than subject matter or pedagogy, became the dominant form of expertise desired by the Board."
Psychometrics and new forms of testing helped to change the nature of assessment away from the curriculum and towards individual academic potential. Subject-based college admissions tests rested on a curriculum-oriented system that was being expanded by secondary educators.
The gradual switch from subject-based tests to measures of academic potential reflected a shift in attitude regarding measuring merit. It was a shift from achievement to aptitude.
Those supporting aptitude tests had reasons for favoring those exams and received added benefits from the shift toward aptitude examinations. Psychometricians argued that aptitude examinations were more objective than essay tests. These tests elevated the knowledge of the psychometrician over that of the content specialist used to devise and grade subject essay examinations.
In 1926, the College Board introduced the Scholastic Aptitude Test, or the SAT. The SAT was an aptitude test; it measured the aptitude or the potential of the test taker to take advantage of college-level work. The College Board began to speak in terms of "qualities" tested by the examinations rather than knowledge tested.
During the 1930s, the College Board's program of testing included both achievement tests (subject tests) and aptitude tests. The College Board also had both essay tests and multiple choice tests.
This two-pronged testing program of achievement and aptitude tests permitted the College Board to burn both ends of the candle. However, it was also contradictory since the Board was supporting simultaneously two very different ideas about testing, the influence on the secondary curriculum, and college admissions.
College Board officials recognized the contradictory nature of its program of testing. What was the College Board's solution to this contradiction? An improvement of examinations so that they would not prescribe instruction in secondary schools and so that they would be more objective.
Eventually,aptitude testing replaced achievement testing. This shift was nearly complete by the beginning of World War II. As early as 1944, College Board officials predicted the use of aptitude tests to expedite the admission and placement of the large cohort of veterans who would seek college admission.
Looking back over the development of the Board, College Board officials connected its expansion with the changing nature of testing.
