Selecting graduate
students in the fields of science and engineering based on an assessment of
their character instead of relying almost entirely on their scores on a
standardized test would significantly improve the quality of the students that
are admitted and, at the same time, boost the participation of women and
minorities in these key disciplines.
That is the argument made
in the essay "A test that fails" published in the June 12 issue of
the journal Nature. The authors are Associate Professor of Physics Casey Miller
of the University of South Florida and Keivan Stassun, professor of physics and
astronomy at Vanderbilt University and Fisk University, who are both involved
in successful bridge programs designed to improve PhD completion rates among all
students and to boost women and underrepresented minority participation in the
fields of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).
According to the authors,
the primary reason that half of all American PhD students fail to graduate, and
the primary barrier holding back women and minority students is American
academia's over-reliance on the GRE, the graduate record examination, a
standardized test introduced in 1949 that most US graduate schools require for
admission. The problem is that the exam's quantitative score – the part
measuring math ability – is not a good predictor of a student's ultimate
success, particularly in the STEM fields. Women, on average, score 80 points on
average lower in the physical sciences than men and African Americans score 200
points below whites. At the same time, studies performed by ETS, the company
that administers the test, have found that the test's predictive ability is
limited to first-year graduate course grades and even that is questionable in
STEM fields.
"In simple terms, the
GRE is a better indicator of sex and skin color than of ability and ultimate
success," the article states.
Despite its demonstrable
demographic bias, graduate-admissions committees routinely use minimum GRE
scores to filter applications. A typical procedure is to reject the application
of any candidate scoring less than 700 on the 800-point quantitative section,
despite the fact that this practice violates ETS guidelines.
"The misuse of GRE
scores to select applicants may be a strong driver of the continuing
under-representation of women and minorities in graduate school. Indeed, women
earn hardly 20 percent of US physical sciences PhDs and underrepresented
minorities – who account for 33 percent of US university-age population – earn just
6 percent. These percentages are striking in their similarity to the percentage
of students who score above 700 on the GRE Quantitative Measure," the
article points out.
Miller and Stassun propose
an alternative approach to the selection process, which has proven successful
in the bridge programs with which they are involved: Using a 30 minute
face-to-face interview that examines an individual's college and research
experiences, key relationships, leadership experience, service to the
community, and life goals. This provides committee members with a good
indication not only of the person's academic training and aptitude but also of
the other competencies that point to a likelihood of success in graduate school
and a STEM career.
The validation for this
approach is the track record of the students in their programs. At the
Fisk-Vanderbilt bridge program, for example, 85 percent of the students would
have been eliminated by the 700-point GRE cutoff. However, 81 percent of the 67
students who have entered the program – including 56 underrepresented
minorities and 35 women – have earned, or are making good progress toward their
PhDs and all the students who have received their doctorates have found
employment in the STEM workforce, as post doctoral students, university faculty
members or staff scientists in national labs or industry. This 81 percent
success rate is significantly better than the 50 percent national average,
which most policy makers agree is an enormous waste of precious human
resources.
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