According to Adda, Henry Fischel invented the concept of standardized exams in the 19th century. Henry Fischel’s purpose for inventing standardized exams was to evaluate students’ understanding of a specific curriculum. He conducted the first examination of his ideologies of standardized tests in China. Throughout the years, exams have progressed in the world for scholars to accurately assess students’ knowledge on a topic. There are problems within examinations that educational institutions need to address. Are exams reliable sources to test students’ comprehension of a curriculum? Therefore, educational institutions should consider removing standardized testing from curriculums because of the negative components associated with students and standardized exams, such as exams not accurately examining students’ knowledge on a topic, exams do not differentiate between students, and the changes made to the education system throughout the years.

Research has shown that educational institutions should reconsider removing standardized exams for many reasons involving exams not accurately testing a person’s knowledge. The reason exams cannot accurately examine what a student understands for topics is that students are not meant to be elevated on the same scale. According to Albert Einstein, “Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” The statement made by Albert Einstein demonstrates that the education system should acknowledge that there are various opportunities to examine what a student understands about the topic. The statement also explains how the constant failure of students that do not excel in exams will believe that they are stupid.

The concept of exams was designed to test the memory of students. The education system fails to recognize that exams can sometimes hinder students’ ability to efficiently learn because of the constant reminder that if the students do not accomplish this task that individual is stupid. According to Belkacem Djemil, “Exams were never a tool to acquire knowledge and can never define someone’s intelligence or capabilities” (Djemil, n.d). Exams can make students feel like a failure, especially if the student is putting in the effort to achieve a good grade. People do not learn or retain information the same way. The education system should stop comparing students.

Educational institutions rely on standardized exams to efficiently measure the educational quality of a student, but scholars discovered that exams do the opposite of evaluating a student’s knowledge of a curriculum. According to James Popham, academic institutions should remove examinations because standardized tests can mislead school board members to think that students at a certain school are not learning. The article discussed how the educational quality of a student should be measured based on what a student can visually or verbally demonstrate to their professor about the curriculum, not on test scores. Many factors can correlate to students receiving low scores on exams. Popham states, “These days if a school’s standardized test scores are high, people think the school’s staff is effective. If a school’s standardized test scores are low, they see the school’s staff as ineffective. In either case, because educational quality is being measured by the wrong yardstick, these evaluations are apt to be in error” (Popham, 1999). Bad test scores not only negatively affect students but can affect staff members of the school.

Therefore, school board members shouldn’t estimate if staff members are doing their job based on scores off a piece of paper. Documentation of test scores can be unreliable sometimes because the score of an individual is not solely based on what the student remembers about the curriculum, but the examination score can demonstrate the circumstances of a student’s life. According to Popham, “There are three factors that influence students’ scores: what’s taught in school, native intellectual ability, and out-of-school learning (Popham, 1999). This article discussed how standardized examinations put a lot of pressure on school staff members. Research has illustrated schools that remove or limit the concept of standardized exams, the quality of education is more efficient for students (Popham, 1999).

Research has shown that standardized exams do not accurately illustrate a student’s knowledge of a topic because individuals do not learn the same way and exams do not measure educational quality. There are more reasons why educational institutions should remove exams. Scholars have studied how situations can affect a student’s ability to achieve a good test score (Mega, C., et al., 2014). Academic institutions fail to acknowledge that students are humans. The real-life circumstances that students go through can be physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual which could affect a student’s performance on an exam. According to scientists in the ERIC Journal article, the emotions and motivation of a student can contribute to academic achievement and academic failure.

The study illustrated that educators think that academic achievement is equivalent to knowledge. In reality, academic achievement is not. There are many components to a student’s achievement or failure on an exam. The result of the study conducted by Caroline, Lucia, and Rosanna prove that positive emotions and self-regulation of learning can produce success, “Moreover, positive emotions foster academic achievement only when they are mediated by self-regulating learning and motivation (Mega, C., et al., 2014). The statement describes what emotions and discipline are connected to achievements.

However, if it is not a student’s circumstances, it’s the self-regulation of learning and the motivation that a student has to overcome to achieve a good test score. Self-regulation is the process of when an individual can control their emotions or thoughts. The process of self-control for some young adults is difficult. The researchers of the journal article titled, college students are not good at Self-regulation, argued that “results imply that test performance is more related to note taking and background knowledge than to self-regulation” (Peverly, S. T., et al., 2003). This statement suggests that there are more factors related to a student’s performance on a test. The study also showed that young adults are good at self-regulating when the assignment is easy but self-regulation is more difficult when the assignment is more complex (Peverly, S. T., et al., 2003).

The authors claim the performance is not based on the memory of a student but on discipline and self-regulation. The problem is most students lack this fundamental. The concern is humans are not electronic machines that are meant to hide their emotions, especially young adults that are still trying to figure out life. Educators expect students to be one hundred percent daily and have to realize that young adults are not the best at self-regulating. Authors claimed the importance of students being capable of self-regulation when learning concepts for an exam (Peverly, S. T., et al., 2003).

There is another aspect of why standardized exams should be banned from educational institutions. The reason is the amount of tremendous pressure students receive from their parents to maintain a certain grade point average. Pressure is not bad but too much stress can negatively affect students according to the Scholars of Motivation and Cheating during Early Adolescence journal article. The report discussed how students that receive enormous stress of obtaining a grade average instead of focusing on mastery and improvement of a concept tend to cheat (Anderman, E. M., et al., 1998). In college, standardized exams tend to weigh more points than homework assignments. Therefore, the stress of passing exams creates a burden for students which influences them to find wrongful techniques to achieve an excellent grade on an exam.

The article states how “the results of the study indicated that students who reported cheating in science perceived their classrooms as being extrinsically focused and perceived their schools as being focused on performance and ability (Anderman, E. M., et al., 1998).” Additionally, researchers have examined if the education system switches the perspective on students’ improvement of a curriculum rather than performance, the percentage of cheating could minimize. The invisible tension between students and the education system is interesting. Students want to excel in all of their curriculums, but the pressure from outsiders can be overbearing leading to students finding options that can potentially put their reputation at risk (Anderman, E. M., et al., 1998). The number of assignments students receive can already take hours to complete. Educators assigning an exam on top of the assignments put the icing on the cake for many students.

The educational system has changed throughout the centuries; along with the system changing, the purpose of the education system has been remodeled according to students. Students have stated the emotions of the education system viewing students as customers more than individuals that simply want to learn information and obtain a degree (Watijatrakul, B.,2014). Additionally, students have expressed that educational establishments have switched their standpoint on performance and ability rather than improvement of a topic (Anderman, E. M., et al., 1998).” Thinking about it, most college professors don’t allow students to retake failed exams. The education system states to students in an indirect tone, “oh you fail an exam. Well, I can’t help you. Do better next time or retake the class.”

Research has shown the problem with universities and standardized exams. The statement verifies the standpoint of students about the education system and its perspective of students as a transaction. According to the results of Watijatrakul’s article, “Students believe that the universities’ adoption of the student-as-customer concept will lead to improvement of the universities’ service quality and the degradation of educational quality in terms of the instructors’ neglect of teaching, the impairment of instructor-student relationship, and the ease of course achievement”. Institutions should focus more on the educational quality of students. Education institutions were designed to provide information to individuals that want to enhance their knowledge. People that want to be someone in this world. This article broadcasts the goals of the education system because educators have acknowledged that everyone does not learn the same yet accept more students than the university can handle and do not provide other options for students to show professors their understanding of the topic discussed in class.

Some individuals think that educational establishments should keep standardized testing because of the many benefits examinations provide for students and educators. The education system claims that exams are excellent techniques for students because standardized tests allow educators to examine a student’s knowledge of a concept, exams teach students time management skills, exams stimulate the brain to exercise information, and more. All of these are good examples of why exams should remain as the protocol for schools to examine students; however, research has shown that educational institutions should remove standardized exams because of how exams negatively affect students. Research has exemplified how exams do not accurately examine a student’s understanding of a topic, exams do not differentiate between students, and the changes made to the education system throughout the years have minimized educational quality. There are sub-supporting details that contribute to the main components of why education institutions should remove exams.

The education system has decided to use standardized exams as the chosen method to test students. There are many ways for educators to evaluate a student, like InQuizitive, projects, essays, small quizzes, and fun games that promote understanding, and improvement, and exercise the brain. Society needs to recognize there are exams create division between students and the education system because of how educators are focused on mastery. The way some universities promote students can’t retake exams and learn is discouraging. Therefore, educational institutions should abolish the concept of standardized examinations.