How can a test be discrimatory?

[Dredly]

I'm confused... how can a written test ever possibly be considered as discriminatory?

[adymond]

Because one ethnicity does better than another.
At least that's what all good progressives are taught.

Basically what happens is when one ethnic group does not do as well as another the argument is made that the test displays a bias. This comes from the idea that cultural norms will cause one ethnic group to interpret the phrasing differently than another. Total BS.

[Robert Kayland]

Word has it that mathematics is a notoriously biased subject...

It discriminates terribly against them what has trouble cypherin'.

[CerealKiller]

Everybody thinks everything is discriminatory now in days. It's pathetic.

[JayBell]

because dumbasses of all races and ethnicities dont do well on tests that point out how stupid they are.

however, since humans generally dont want to admit that they are dumbasses, they claim its biased towards race/sex/ethnicity.

[cgbudde]

because dumbasses of all races and ethnicities dont do well on tests that point out how stupid they are.

however, since humans generally dont want to admit that they are dumbasses, they claim its biased towards race/sex/ethnicity.

The best explanation I've heard to date, and correct.

[Dredly]

because dumbasses of all races and ethnicities dont do well on tests that point out how stupid they are.

however, since humans generally dont want to admit that they are dumbasses, they claim its biased towards race/sex/ethnicity.

yup thought that was it just confirming

[Robert Kayland]

however, since humans generally dont want to admit that they are dumbasses, they claim its biased towards race/sex/ethnicity.

It's not so much that dumbasses don't want to admit they're dumbasses... it's more that some folks don't want to admit that dumbassery* isn't evenly distributed amongst all peoples.

*eh... dumbassedness... dumbassism?

[cdarney]

Sorry but questions can reflect considerable bias. When one of my kids in early elementary school was shown a picture of a mop (the kind with the stringy head) he had no idea what it was, having only seen sponge mops. His answer was wrong.

I had someone else tell me of an intelligence-type test he was given. One of the questions showed a farm scene with snow on the ground. A man, having apparently just driven in was standing at the door. He was asked to identify what was wrong with the picture with the correct answer being that there were no footprints leading from the car to the porch. His answer, having grown up on a farm, was obvious - there were no lightning rods on the house.

Standardized tests can be culturally and racially biased based on the person who writes the question and the one who grades the answer. Great care must be taken to avoid the situation.

[Robert Kayland]

Sorry but questions can reflect considerable bias. When one of my kids in early elementary school was shown a picture of a mop (the kind with the stringy head) he had no idea what it was, having only seen sponge mops. His answer was wrong.

Those are nonsense type of tests anyway... obviously, if someone has never seen a bore brush they might not guess it's to be used on gun barrels rather than sink drains... and any pedagogue who dreams up such a test isn't worth his/her salt... as a matter of fact, I would argue that they come up with such things on occasion and gleefully trumpet the obviously biased type of question merely to bolster the canard that, ergo, all standardized tests are biased.

But that sort of question is not what most of the standardized academic tests given in schools are all about... leastwise, not the ones I took back in the day, nor the ones I saw my own kids go through.

Reliable aptitude/IQ tests do the standard stuff, like straight math, spacial relationship diagrams and pattern-matching, and reading comprehension strictly based upon the specific paragraphs presented.

And just because someone never saw a kumquat doesn't mean that there is bias in a question such as: "If Lee Ang has 3 kumquats and Soo Lee has 2 kumquats, how many kumquats do they have in total?"