Pennsylvania Study, The

The Pennsylvania Study of the Relation of Secondary and Higher Education, sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, was conducted between 1925 and 1938 and examined the academic careers of 45,000 Pennsylvania high school and college students. The intent of the study was to shift the definition of academic progress from the passing of time (the Carnegie unit as “the package method of academic advancement”) to a student's demonstration of knowledge as ascertained by innovative standardized tests. While the Carnegie unit continued to dominate the secondary school curriculum, The Pennsylvania Study greatly influenced college administrators' acceptance of standardized tests and, in so doing, expanded expectations for college applications and reformed the college admissions process.

By the mid-1920s, advances in tests and measurements prompted some educators to question the value of the Carnegie unit as the leading indicator of a student's readiness for postsecondary studies. The field of college admissions was undergoing a transformation as admission officers asked whether capable students, particularly those from less privileged settings and/or from rural backgrounds, were being overlooked due to their inability to fulfill certain Carnegie unit requirements. In addition, secondary school programs varied dramatically in academic quality, and Carnegie units were not commensurate across the country. Hopes ran high for standardized testing—the new science of measurement—to be able to reduce the high drop-out rate among college students by ensuring more accurate placement and by identifying able students regardless of their family background. These leaders believed that widespread testing to identify talent would [Page 691]open opportunities for students, and this would be done not by content-oriented tests, such as the traditional College Board (content-oriented) examinations, but by an innovative new type of college-oriented aptitude test. Standardized testing was at this time not viewed as “high-stakes testing,” but instead associated with democracy, fairness, and opportunity since all students could now be considered for admissions to college on the grounds of intelligence rather than the accessibility to college preparatory programs. The question became what type of testing should be used: scholastic aptitude tests, traditional college (subjective essay) tests, or newly conceived objective (multiple-choice) achievement tests?

Directed by William Learned of the Carnegie Foundation's Division of Educational Enquiry, with assistance from Ben Wood, director of the American Council of Education's Cooperative Test Service, the Pennsylvania Study's fundamental thesis maintained that educational reform should be based on the needs of students rather than new administrative techniques and that the acquisition of knowledge remained the dominating focus of schooling. High school achievement tests were administered to more than 45,000 high school and college students, approximately 70% of all senior secondary students in the state of Pennsylvania, with some students tested every 2 years for a 6-year period. In 1928 alone, tests were given to 27,000 high school seniors. The Study was conceived to examine the 7-year progress of a group of sixth-grade children through high school; the 5-year progress of 40,000 high school seniors through college; and 1-year progress of 5,000 college seniors.

Learned had devised a new type of test consisting of multiple-choice, true-false, and matching items. This innovative format represented a major breakthrough in standardization because instruments could now be scored quickly and objectively. IBM collaborated with the Cooperative Test Service and developed means for scoring the Pennsylvania Study's exam sheets electronically. Thousands of tests were administered with the intent to accumulate reliable and valid data for students throughout their academic careers. The Cooperative Test Service, formed in 1930, became a factory for the standardized, objective achievement test and provided high school and college tests for the Pennsylvania Study and, originally planned by Learned and Wood, for the Progressive Education Association's Commission on the Relation of School and College (the Eight-Year Study).

...