Scantron Technology
Technology often complicates or alters processes it seeks to streamline, placing new demands on its users. The benefits of technologies designed to promote efficiency often outweigh the cost of added complexity. However, for some processes, the technologies designed to simplify are so invasive that they substantively alter the process they are supposed to improve. One example of this is the Scantron Test Scoring Machine (TSM).

Scantron is a California-based company that manufacturers machines that score tests automatically. These machines use proprietary, multiple-choice based forms.  The TSM grades with an optical scanner that detects pencil marks. Although some Scantron forms feature a “Subjective Scoring Area,” an area on the form in which the teacher can include the grade for a separate, subjective portion of an exam, the forms themselves are only usable for multiple-choice and true-false tests (Scantron).  These machines give teachers an easier way to evaluate tests.

Teachers grade Scantron forms by feeding them into the TSM, saving the time it would take to grade tests by hand.  In order to use the Scantron forms, however, teachers must create a selection-type test, such as multiple-choice or true-false, rather than a supply-type test, such as completion, short answer, or essay.  As a result, the constraints unique to the technology of the Scantron system dictate the type of test a teacher can design.

Supply-type and selection-type tests each have their own merits and teachers must decide which type is most appropriate for the material a test covers. Essay and short answer questions require students to, “present evidence, to evaluate, to analyze and to solve new problems or approach problems in a new way.” (Tinkleman)  Completion questions serve a purpose similar to multiple choice, but remove the element of guessing (Tinkleman).

True-false questions are only effective in testing specific facts and, “must be based on statements that are absolutely and unambiguously true or false. A relatively small proportion of the significant statements that can be made on any subject satisfy this criterion.” (Tinkleman)  Also, students have a 50% chance of guessing the answer to a true-false question.  Multiple-choice questions have fewer drawbacks, but do not offer some of the advantages of supply-type questions.  Although selection-type questions are effective testing instruments in many cases, the topic of the test rather than the limitations of the technology used to evaluate the test should dictate how teachers design questions.

Scantron technology is related to the push for standardized testing nationwide. Teachers are sometimes said to “teach to the test,” but the peculiarities of Scantron-type answer sheets gives that term a new meaning. The traditional meaning of “teaching to the test,” that is, teaching only material to appear on a test, is being replaced by a new meaning: teaching students to adapt to the technology of test taking. In a testimonial on the Scantron website, a teacher remarks:

"One of the biggest tasks as an 8th grade teacher is to prepare my students for the state proficiency test by giving my own tests. Using Scantron’s Test Scoring Machine (TSM) and TSM forms I am able to familiarize my students with the process. This practice for students in advance of taking the actual test is invaluable (Scantron)."

Scantron technology is not inherently bad, but it caters to teachers’ laziness.  The TSM provides positive reinforcement for designing selection-type tests regardless of the most appropriate format for the material covered.  Supply-type questions are the best instruments to test certain concepts, but the TSM is a disincentive to their use.  Scantron is a type of technology that reverses the adage “form follows function.”  Increasingly, users of technologies find themselves forced to adapt to the technologies rather than the other way around.


Scantron Homepage. 17 April 2002. 
Available: http://www.scantron.com/

Tinkleman, Sherman. Improving the Classroom Test: A Manual of Test Construction Procedures for the Classroom Teacher. 17 April 2002.
Available:
http://www.eductrak.com/teacher/classroomtesting/classroomtesting1.pdf

Ethan Kent