"ACT’s argument is that choice is good. A counterpoint is that chaos is bad."
ACT is going to let students retake a single section *on a computer*. This is the piece to read on this BFD in standardized testing. compassprep.com/act-section-re…
ACT is going to let students retake a single section *on a computer*. This is the piece to read on this BFD in standardized testing. compassprep.com/act-section-re…
A couple thoughts:
Staffing proctors sounds like a mess.
Will there be equitable availability of this option? Will all sites will have a computer ACT?.
Tutors are going to benefit--take one more bite! That means the benefit could advantage the advantaged most of all.
Staffing proctors sounds like a mess.
Will there be equitable availability of this option? Will all sites will have a computer ACT?.
Tutors are going to benefit--take one more bite! That means the benefit could advantage the advantaged most of all.
Here's the nightmare scenario and gamesmanship that ACT just introduced:
Take the whole ACT once as a sophomore in the fall just to get the "one whole test" out of the way. Then spend sophomore, junior, and senior year working on one section at a time. You'd have 11 shots.
Take the whole ACT once as a sophomore in the fall just to get the "one whole test" out of the way. Then spend sophomore, junior, and senior year working on one section at a time. You'd have 11 shots.
Will a college trust an ACT Composite score earned over 12 takes, using single section retakes? Should they? I don't know, but good to know that almost all college admissions offices keep a psychometrician on staff to consult on how best to use test scores.
This is likely to be a rare extreme--more likely is the students who benefit most from tests will benefit more, especially since there won't be a school day option and ACT's inability to announce anything about fee waivers shows where their priorities are.
Tying the single retake to only computer-based ACT (which isn't adaptive) is a way to sell students on this unpopular platform which until now has just been used in school day exams & internationally.
Will schools feel compelled to offer the computer test is the question. Or be able to? There were complaints last year about too few international sites that could offer the computer ACT. Again, the access the picture is so fuzzy here, I wonder why ACT released this news now.
If you want a sense of just how much ACT cares about access, take a look at their free test prep service, ACT Academy. They made a practice site where they don't even get the number of answer choices correct. 
One more access question that ACT has not explained. ACT charges students $13 PER test score that they send to colleges. What happens now? Could I retake a single section and send that score with my superscore? Would schools not see the other section scores?
The absolute most basic access point to be made here (h/t @jennthetutor) is that low-income students get waivers to take the ACT twice. Letting students game the test with single section retakes is a benefit that tilts the field even more in favor of the wealthy.
ACT is going to let students take up to 3 sections on the retake. Again, this feels like a nightmare to proctor. And makes me wonder about all the psychometric science behind test design.
ACT's FAQ suggests they didn't look at the effect of reducing the test length. They looked at validity of superscoring. They looked at section order. But they didn't look at the difference it might make doing the Science all by itself versus at the end of 2.4 hours of testing.
International students are being denied the section retake option.
ACT has not studied the effect of retaking just sections. The normal thing to do would be to launch a pilot and do a study of it. Not these guys!
One clarification: students are limited to 12 full ACTs lifetime. It looks like that limit does not apply to section retakes. So, a student who took the ACT as a freshman in October, could do more than 20 retakes before applying to college. It would be insane, but possible.
ACT's own research shows that more than 2/3 of first generation students (parents did not get a BA/BS) who take the ACT at school *only* take the ACT at school. Further evidence that this section retake benefit will not be equally shared.
One commentor on Reddit expressed concerns about test score inflation. That's already happening. Section retake could make it worse.
1998: 71 perfect ACT scores in the US.
2018: 3,741 perfect ACT scores in the US. Tiny Connecticut had 68 perfect scores.
1998: 71 perfect ACT scores in the US.
2018: 3,741 perfect ACT scores in the US. Tiny Connecticut had 68 perfect scores.
I just can't stop thinking about a testing company that evaluate scientific thinking saying that they are going to do research to confirm what they want to be true.
Maybe it's just me, but that seems really backwards. And bad.
h/t @akilbello
Maybe it's just me, but that seems really backwards. And bad.
h/t @akilbello
*evaluates #editbutton
@JonBoyd11 raises important points here about the ACT's computer based test and points out that ACT is going to have to increase the number of computer-based practice tests from *one*.
It becomes a little clearer why ACT introduced changes for next year in mid-stream for the Class of 2021: the number of students who took the test in the class of 2019 was the lowest since 2012 (-7% from last year, -15% from peak). The avg also dropped again, from 20.8 to 20.7.
The loss of 307,402 students from 2016 at ~$50 per test is worth ~$15M to ACT.
unroll @threadreaderapp
