Timed Tests Don’t Make Sense!!

Dyslexic students, and probably most of the others too, dread timed tests. But what if the problem isn't, you know, test anxiety or someone needing accommodations? What if the underlying problem is the test itself? What's really being tested? Stick around for Nick's rant on timed tests.

Hey everyone, we're Nick and Sonja, and this is Dyslexia Journey, where we discuss topics related to supporting the dyslexic child in your life. So, let's talk about timed tests. Our dyslexic children often struggle with timed tests because they are generally slower to read and process information. They can have trouble completing tests that have a time limit in the allotted time. And this can be as true, and is as true, for math and science tests, as it is for tests that explicitly are testing reading and writing, such as tests for language arts and social studies and things like that.

Dyslexic students can often get an accommodation in school to take longer on the tests. So, this is most commonly time and a half, which means they get an extra 50%. So, if the test is set for an hour, they get an hour and a half. Sometimes you can even get double time, but that actually proves to be quite difficult to get. So, what are we actually testing with timed tests? Why do we, why are we so obsessed with time limits and speed and getting things done in a certain amount of time?

The point of school is to teach children how to think, how to solve problems, hopefully. I think there's sometimes still some rote memorization, but really for all of that, the point of the exam should be for the child to demonstrate mastery of the material, whatever material that is. If it's a spelling test, they should demonstrate that they can spell the words correctly. If it's a math test, they should be able to demonstrate that they can solve the math problems.

None of that mastery necessarily involves a time limit. So, why in school are we so obsessed with time limits? Why does it matter if you can solve 10 math problems in 5 minutes, or 10 minutes, or an hour? What matters is that you understand the concept and that you can demonstrate that you can solve the problems. So, why in school are we so obsessed with these time limits? Why do we say that someone who can solve these 10 problems in 5 minutes gets a higher grade, is smarter, and, quote, knows the material better than someone who could get the same 10 correct answers if they just had 10 minutes instead of 5 minutes?

Now, obviously, these are rhetorical questions. I think everyone watching and listening here can tell what I'm thinking about this. But really, the point I'm trying to get to is that I think, at least in the U.S. school system, which is what I'm most familiar with, we've conflated demonstrating mastery of the material with doing things quickly. And those are not the same thing. And I think we really need to, in our school systems, and just in our society, and in general, we need to separate out this concept of speed and doing things quickly from being able to demonstrate that you know and understand something.

So, given that, I would actually argue that timed tests in school are really a historical artifact that we just don't need anymore. I would argue that in school, tests should be unlimited time for everyone to demonstrate the mastery, whether they have dyslexia or not, whether they need other accommodations or not. Timed tests are just not a useful measure for really measuring anyone's mastery of material. Okay. So, artifact or not, this is, you know, a big part of the system already.

So, let me play the devil's advocate here and ask you some questions. So, what about someone who says, well, how is that student, when they get into the real world, going to, how are they going to fare? Like, are, you know, what if they need to do something quickly? Like, are they ever going to be able to work under time constraints? And, like, that's just not how the real world works. What about that argument?

Yeah, that's a good, that's a good point. I think two things I want to say about that. First of all, I think that the, quote, real world is not nearly as time constrained and time pressured in most areas and most careers as we like to pretend it is when children are in school. So, in school, you often have to, say, take a math test in an hour where you're solving four pages of problems.

I cannot think of a real world scenario where you have to do that in that kind of time pressure. So, I'm a computer programmer. That's my, that's my day job. And, I mean, yes, there is some, some desire to get programs written fairly quickly. But, in general, everyone agrees that it's better to spend two days getting the program done right and making sure there are no bugs than to, to rush and try to get it done in one day, but maybe have bugs that you discover down the line and you need to, to spend more time ultimately fixing them.

So, I think learning to do things methodically and thoroughly are probably more important for my particular career than, than learning to do things quickly. The second point I'll make about this is that school isn't the real world. And we can, we can pretend that we're trying to get kids ready for the real world, but I think that we need to at least be honest about what we're doing here. So, are we trying to use tests to measure children's mastery of material, or are we trying to use tests to measure how children perform under time pressure?

And those are two different things. And let's at least be honest that right now we're doing the latter. Like, we generally are using tests as a time pressure mechanism, and I just don't think we're being honest about that. Okay. Yeah. You're making me think too, that, you know, both that there isn't that much time pressure usually on things in the real, real world, but also in some cases where there are, makes sense.

Like maybe how fast you're typing if you're a court reporter. I'm not sure what methods they use in that these days, but, but like in other cases, like let's say in an interview for something that's more math and engineering oriented, it's almost like maybe a carryover just to them at that mentality. Is it even necessary for people to have timed tests in those kinds of circumstances? Yeah. That's a very good point.

Okay. Yeah. So what about, let's sort of take the teachers and schools perspective here. Kind of, doesn't it seem like it might be a logistical nightmare? I mean, could it really be true? Like, would you just have to only have tests like quarterly? Like, what would you do? Like, how can you handle, like, how do you move on? Like, are some of the kids still taking the test and the other ones are, are moving on to new material. It seems like it'd be pretty hard to implement.

Yeah. I, I, I totally understand that. And I have a lot of sympathy and admiration for our teachers who are, are working very hard and doing their best here. so I don't mean to impugn any, any teachers here. I think it's really the overall system that needs changing. as to the actual details, the logistical details, I think that teachers tend to fall into a trap because we have this pattern of having time limited tests.

teachers sort of push the, the envelope of that and tend to put a lot of content in there and say, okay, I want to test this and this and this. And, and, you know, I only have an hour in this block to test. and so it ends up being sort of an over full test. And I think just by shifting our perspective, maybe we could say, okay, this, you know, today we're just going to test, you know, one concept and I'm going to have 10 problems and I'm going to give the kids and, you know, it, it should take the average student 20 minutes, but we're going to give the kids the whole block, of an hour or, or whatever it is.

And then maybe, you know, the next day you, you test the other concepts. So dividing it up like that, I think is, is one approach. yeah, I mean, I think that's really the main answer here is, is let's not try to stuff our tests over full where it takes the kids so long to do it. So that sounds good, but okay. What about from the student's perspective? Like it sounds kind of like, Hey, you're going to give me a longer test. Yay. and then, you know, I just, I know actually from students, kids that we know who, including our daughter, who have accommodations for, for longer time on tests that it's actually like they in a way don't like it. Like it's definitely a mixed blessing where they, they need the extra time, but they also are more tired. And it's like, feels like this really long process then. So what about that? Like, what about that student perspective?

Yeah, that's a good point. And that's, that's a topic we've covered, in a previous episode, actually, where we talked about how dyslexia can make you tired. so that would be a good one to, to, to go and revisit at this point or watch if you haven't seen it yet. so yes, I think. I think that the answer here is probably not having tests that are the same level of difficulty and the same amount of content and then expecting everyone to be able to focus for three hours or whatever, to, to get that done, especially, especially, you know, maybe that's appropriate at the college level. you know, we had finals that were three hours long in college, but you know, for an eight year old, that's definitely not going to be appropriate.

So again, I think the answer here is probably for, and again, this is probably more, more work for teachers, but to kind of rethink their approach here and to, really think carefully about what they're trying to, to test, what they're trying to understand about what their students know, and to really think hard about how they can do that with fewer questions and in a shorter amount of time. Or if it really is something like when you get to high school and you're doing a timed essay or, or even in middle school, I think they do this to some extent.

I guess maybe, well, that that's, that's a tough one. I mean, again, I think you just have to give people additional time to do that. I mean, if you're expecting someone to construct, I mean, if you step back and think about this for a minute, expecting anyone to construct a well-reasoned, well-thought-out, well-written essay in like 45 minutes is kind of absurd. Like the fact that we expect our high school students to be able to do that with regularity is, is strange in my opinion. So I think we just need to rethink the whole approach here.

Okay. But that leads me into maybe getting back into the real world of the, I guess, academic track. If, if a student's thinking of going to college, for example, like what about the fact that, like, again, you can get accommodations for this, but just in general, I'm thinking about whether this, you could have untimed tests. I mean, it seems like some tests are always going to be timed. Like I'm thinking of SATs, ACTs, maybe the AP or IB tests, but especially like an SAT or ACT. What, what about like, if the system isn't totally changed, that there's still some tests like that, then aren't the students just not going to be able to do that because they don't practice doing things in a timely manner?

And yeah, aren't used to as many problems, you know, all of that. Yeah. I mean, so a couple of things there. I mean, first of all, I think we should change the entire system. I think that the standardized testing focus on, time is ridiculous. Like that's not, that's not, that's only like the SAT or, or AP tests, being so, so focused on time limits and getting stuff done quickly is really only testing students ability to take those kinds of tests. It's not, it's not testing their intelligence. It's not testing their, their perseverance, their, their ability to learn material, over an extended period. Right. So, so there are lots of problems with those types of tests. And so I really, I think I am arguing that the whole system should change.

Now that said, I realized that, I don't have the power to, to, sort of dictate that change. So within the system, I think that, yes, I, I do think, students are going to have to probably, if they're planning to go to college, learn how to take timed tests. And now just for those of you who don't know, you can actually, if you have a documented learning disability, such as dyslexia, you can get extra time on standardized tests like the SAT, and AP tests, and you can get time and a half or, or even double time sometimes.

and then, so, so for students who are planning to do that, then they, they will need to probably practice time tests. But I think that that's something that, that, that's something that they will need to do, but, but just because they need to do that in order to get into college, doesn't mean that all of our exams all throughout school need to be so focused on time pressure. Okay. So I was playing the devil's advocate here with those questions, but as you might've picked up, I actually, you know, already was in agreement with Nick about this. So if you have any questions, you know, that I didn't cover or concerns about this, it would be great if you put it in the comments and we can try to address those. Cause we might not have thought of everything that is a potential concern with that.

Yeah. I'd be happy to know why, if, if people have other objections to this issues that I haven't thought of, you know, perhaps I was oversimplifying. Things here, perhaps that, I would love to hear from other, students with dyslexia. I'd love to hear from teachers about how they manage this, in their, in their classrooms as well. And how hard it might feel to implement it or what the challenges would be too. Okay. So hopefully this was interesting to hear Nick's rant. and if you could like, and subscribe and share, we'd love that. So we can get this content out to everyone.

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