Inquiry Project Genre- Comparing Primary & Secondary Information-Academic Source

Comparing-Background Info:

Digging farther into my research I began to research why the person may have said what they said. I began to ask myself different questions. When did these standardized tests originate? Are there different acts that supports standardize testing? How are they funded? To answer some of my own questions from comparing the two I found: These tests actually originated in China before coming to the US. When moving to the US, the tests became known as a, 20th century phenomena. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 required standardized testing in public schools. The No Child Left behind Act ties public school funding to standardize testing. I can now take what I found when comparing the two side by side and use this to further investigate my research.

Comparing-Different Opinions: I wanted to pick apart my interview partners responses. As soon as I asked her, her opinion on standardized testing, she automatically responded with Its so hardstressfultoo much info etc. I thought she may have said those things do to bad past experiences, low test grades, & of course the common stress we all experience during tests. Going into one of my questions, are the test fair? I did more research and found many different responses. Teachers said, due to these tests, sometimes they feel as if they are teaching for the tests. Some thought these tests had good material to be learned, but the majority said that the government is essentially qualifying educational adequacy with an equation. I also wanted to find different opinions. I searched Wikipedia and found one opinion saying Standardize tests are useful for assessing students achievement (math, reading skills) but cant measure creativity, conceptual thinking, effort, or other valuable attributes. What they measure are isolated skills, content knowledgeetc. Going into my next source I found more or less ones personal opinion of standardize testing. One of the questions on this website was Do test scores reflect significant differences among people? They answered the question by saying the goal of the tests are to rank students, not necessarily by ethnic background or gender, but by difficulty of the question and sometimes this proves to be unfair. As I compared my primary & secondary research here I began to see that my sources had the same opinions as the person I interviewed. I began to see this opinion more of a general opinion. I found here that my secondary source and primary source mainly relate based on how the tests evaluate a students progress by using these tests.

\ Comparing-Test forms individualizing:

Now I am more interested in finding facts rather than opinions. I plan to look more into the reasons why gender/ethnicity are required on these forms. As I compared my primary & secondary research I found something that might help me answer this question. When comparing the two I found I had answered my own questions on one or the other that I didnt even know I had. In my secondary research I began trying to answer the main questions about my topic. I also found an answer from my secondary research that helps provide answers to this question. One of my sources said: The goals of the tests are to rank students, not necessarily by ethnic background or gender, but by difficulty of the question. This gives me a different insight I never really thought of. Why do standardize test forms individualize students? Are these standardized tests helping or hurting or schools as a whole? How exactly do they do it? And what do they do with the results they get from it? Im sure the question has been brought up many time as to why we have to fill in that little bubble on our tests stating our ethnicity, gender, etc. I chose to use the Joseph Harris article for one of support to my topic. I like the different use of languages and diversity used in the article. This article helped me to see different communities compared side-by-side. I am interested in finding out more about different communities and seeing if maybe this could be a reason why test forms individualize so that they can group them all together in the end. I think I can use this article to answer some of my questions in a more elaborate way.

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Dear Ms. Jackson, I fail to find the relationship between your discoveries from both types of research. You make reference to answers but which questions are they answering? How does statistical farming from test forms relate to fairness and usability of standardized testing? Respectfully, Ricardo Cordova