Idea Draft

Inquiry Question: Is the increasing dependency on standardized testing scores hurting or benefiting students in todays society?

Why the readers should be interested in this topic: Everyone has been affected by one form of standardized tests in their life wether it's the SAT or the Star Test. These tests results are used so heavily in determining the future success of students in college or in their life. All students are being held to certain standards they are required to meet in order to be considered successful or intelligent. However, are the standards students are required to meet benefiting their schooling experience or hurting it? The readers that will come across this paper will either have had a bad or good experience with standardized testing. Either way I will provide research that will interest the readers with good or bad experiences with these tests.

Why this topic is important to me: I am one of the many unlucky students who have had countless bad experiences with standardized testing. My below average scores would result in me being put in lower level classes that didn't challenge me. I have always wanted to know if standardized testing scores we're actually beneficial to students across the country. I have also wanted to know if there were other who have had the same experience with standardized testing as I.

Establishing a territory: Last semester for my oral communications class, i researched a topic very similar to this one. My topic last semester was whether or not standardizing testing was an accurate measure of student intelligence. Although my inquiry question this semester is not quite the same, I did find a lot of research regarding how standardized testing is affecting the students. There are many scholarly published who have wrote about this topic already. Each of them provide different points of views and different evidence to support their claim. This topic is very much talked about especially in todays society because there are more standards being created that students must meet.

Establishing a niche: Since I have already done some research on this topic, I do know the basics os standardized tests and why we are required to take them. However, I still want to find out more of the student perspective to see if these tests benefit or hurt their performance in school.

Occupying the niche: To gain different perspectives, I will interview various different students around campus. I will choose students who have received good test scores and students who have received bad test scores. I will ask them questions such as whether or not they believe they have benefited from the standardized test scores and whether of not they believe these tests are fair.