The Pennsylvania Study

The Pennsylvania Study, educational study conducted between 1925 and 1938 that intended 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. Sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the study examined the academic careers of 45,000 Pennsylvania high school and college students. 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 had 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 and/or rural backgrounds, were being overlooked owing 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 that standardized testing—the then-new science of measurement—might be able to reduce the high dropout rate among college students by ensuring more-accurate placement and by identifying able students regardless of their economic background. Advocates of widespread standardized testing believed that it would identify talent and open opportunities for students not through content-oriented tests—such as the traditional College Board examinations—but through an innovative new type of college-oriented aptitude test. Standardized testing was not viewed at this time as “high-stakes testing” but instead was associated with democracy, fairness, and opportunity in the belief that 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 hinged on the fundamental thesis that educational reform should be based on the needs of students rather than new administrative techniques and that the acquisition of knowledge should remain the focus of education. High school achievement tests were administered to more than 45,000 high school and college students (approximately 70 percent of all senior secondary students in the state of Pennsylvania), with some students tested every two years for a six-year period. In 1928 alone, tests were given to 27,000 high school seniors. The study was conceived to examine the seven-year progress of a group of sixth-graders through high school, the five-year progress of 40,000 high school seniors through college, and the one-year progress of 5,000 college seniors.

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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. International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) collaborated with the Cooperative Test Service and developed means for scoring the Pennsylvania Study’s exam sheets electronically. 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.

Wood believed that by administering standard intelligence tests with achievement tests, school faculties could assist students in becoming more aware of their capabilities as a way to help plan their futures. Learned was able to introduce an extensive student sampling procedure to begin planning a statewide system that would result in a cumulative record of all students’ “knowledge attainment.” They believed that six years of cumulative records would provide adequate information for admissions to Pennsylvania colleges and ultimately would have greater predictive value than any single college entrance exam. Learned attempted to establish a system in which each student’s cumulative record would become part of a national database that college admissions officers throughout the United States could draw upon.