Introduction to International Journal of Testing special issue on equity and fairness in testing and assessment in school admissions

Abstract

Across the globe, educational tests are used for admissions decisions to competitive colleges, universities, high schools, and other programs. The high stakes associated with these tests have important consequences for students, and performance on them can determine whether students reach their academic and career aspirations. For this reason, their use is both widespread and contentious. Recently, the debates over the use of standardized tests in college and graduate admissions has increased, due in large part to concerns about score disparities resulting in disparate admissions outcomes. The International Journal of Testing has published many examples of criticisms and research with respect to admissions testing around the world, including in Chile (Ramirez et al., 2020), Israel (Rapp & Allalouf, 2003), Saudi Arabia (Tsaousis et al., 2018), Sweden (Wiberg & von Davier, 2017), and the United States (e.g., TalentoMiller, 2008). In the U.S. and Chile, public outcry against disparate outcomes for certain groups of students have marshaled in changes in admissions testing programs and the policies associated with them (Koljatic et al., 2021). In the U.S., several colleges and universities have suspended the SAT and ACT requirements for their applicants, which generated a number of heated discussions both within and outside academia. The use of the Graduate Record Examinations (GREs) in graduate admissions is also being hotly debated for similar reasons, and a number of graduate programs in the U.S. have opted to remove the GRE requirement from https://doi.org/10.1080/15305058.2021.2019753