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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
To begin at the beginning, proficiency tests, like paper, printing, and gunpowder, were invented by the Chinese. As early as 2200 B.C. the emperor of China was using tests to decide which of his officials should be promoted and which should be fired. A thousand years later the Chan dynasty had developed a series of examinations in which every candidate for public office demonstrated his competence in the five basic arts: music, archery, horsemanship, writing, and arithmetic. Tests for teachers arrived in the Western world with the establishment of the medieval universities. The probationary discourse was the essential step by which a student proved himself fit for membership in the tightly held guild of university professors. Today tests are a normal requirement for admission to the practice of law and medicine, not to mention barbering, the selling of real estate, and the calculation of insurance risks. Both the pervasiveness and the ancient lineage of proficiency tests argue for the possibility that they are producible and for the probability that they are useful.
* An address given at the General Meeting on English in Chicago, 28 December 1965.
1 PhilipH. DuBois, “A Test-Dominated Society: China, 1115 B.C.-1905 A.D.,” Proceedings of the 1964 Invitational Conference on Testing Problems (Princeton, N.J.: Educational Testing Service, 1964), pp. 3–11.
2 Hastings Rashdall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, ed. F.M. Powicke and A.B. Emden (London: Oxford University Press, 1936), i, 226 and passim.
3 James B. Conant, The Education of American Teachers (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963), pp. 46–47, 58.
4 A Description of the MLA Foreign Language Proficiency Tests for Teachers and Advanced Students (Princeton, N.J.: Educational Testing Service, 1964).
5 Conant, p. 182.
6 “A Proposal for ‘Bar Exams’,” College Composition and Communication, x (May 1959), 85–88.
7 Braddock in an unpublished proposal, “Development of a Proficiency Examination for Prospective Teachers of English in Secondary Schools,” cites the following: Arthur L. Benson and Fred I. Godshalk, “ ‘Bar Examinations’ for NCTE Membership,” College English, xii (November 1960), 133–135; Jay E. Greene, “Qualifying Examinations Plus Institutional Recommendations for Teacher Certification,” Journal of Teacher Education, xi (June 1960), 239–243; Earl E. Mosier, “Proficiency Examinations—A Wise or Unwise Policy?” Journal of Teacher Education, xi (June 1960), 223–230; Eugene E. Slaughter, “A Modified Proposal for ‘Bar Exams’,” College English, xxii (November 1960), 136–138, and “The Use of Examinations for State Certification of Teachers,” Journal of Teacher Education, xi (June 1960), 231–238.
8 “Can We Tell How Much They Know?” 1962 Iowa English Yearbook.
9 For a more elaborate series of arguments and counterarguments, see Arthur L. Benson, “Testing Procedures in the Administration of Educational Personnel,” Education, LXXV (December 1964), 244–251.
10 Albert R. Kitzhaber, Robert M. Gorrell, and Paul Roberts, Education for College (New York: Ronald Press, 1961), p. 95.
11 “Changing Teachers in a Changing World,” The Education of Teachers: New Perspectives, Official Report of the Second Bowling Green Conference (Washington, D. C: National Education Assoc., 1958), pp. 121–134.
12 Orville G. Brim, Jr., David A. Goslin, David C. Glass, Isadore Goldberg, The Use of Standardized Ability Tests in American Secondary Schools and Their Impact on Students, Teachers, and Administrators, Technical Report No. 3 on the Social Consequences of Testing (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1965), pp. 174, 172–173, 88.
13 David A. Goslin, The Search for Ability: Standardized Testing in Social Perspective (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1963), p. 91.
14 The State Education Department, Regents Examinations, 1865–1965, 100 Years of Quality Control in Education (Albany: Univ. of the State of New York, 1965).
15 The Project on the Instructional Program of the Public Schools, The Principals Look at the Schools (Washington, D.C.: National Education Assoc., 1962), pp. 25–26.
16 Henry M. Brickell, Organizing New York State for Educational Change: A Report to the State Commissioner of Education (Albany: State Dept. of Education, 1962).
17 “MLA Foreign Language Proficiency Tests for Teachers and Advanced Students,” PMLA, LXXVII (September, Part 2, 1962), 1–12.
18 Kitzhaber, et. al., p. iii.
19 Lawrence V. Ryan, “ ‘Learning Without Book Every Thing’ or Who Teaches the Teacher of English?” California Education, n (February 1965), 7–12.
20 The National Interest and the Teaching of English (Champaign, Ill.: NCTE, 1961), pp. 39–87.
21 Freedom and Discipline in English (New York: College Entrance Examination Board, 1965), pp. 5–6.
22 Benjamin S. Bloom, ed., Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook I: Cognitive Domain (New York: Longmans, Green, 1956).
23 Fred I. Godshalk, Frances Swineford, and William E. Coffman, The Measurement of Writing Ability, College Entrance Examination Board Research Monograph No. 6 (New York: College Entrance Examination Board, in press).
24 Ledyard R Tucker, “Dimensions of Preference,” Research Memorandum No. 60–7 (Princeton, N.J.: Educational Testing Service, 1960).
25 A.I. Siegel, D.G. Schultz, and R.S. Tanterman, “The Development of Absolute Scales of Electronic Job Performance” (Wayne, Pa.: Applied Psychological Services, 1964).
26 For thoughtful suggestions and criticisms of a draft of this paper, I am grateful to my colleagues at E.T.S.: Arthur J. Benson, William E. Coffman, Paul B. Diederich, Fred I. Godshalk, Eisa Rosenthal, and Benjamin Rosner.