SAT's shift to digital form giving students a 'better experience' than traditional option: Education expert
Dr. Jack Dempsey, director of research at Cascade Reading, told Fox News Digital how he believes the new digital SAT is transforming standardized testing.
Colleges are returning to the standardized testing requirements of old, but there's something new to the tests that have made students' stomachs tighten for decades.
The digital SAT is here, forcing students to trade in their No. 2 pencils for a keyboard and a testing app called Bluebook.
It appears to promise a shorter, more streamlined process, with varied questions and consolidated sections, but is it better? Dr. Jack Dempsey, director of research at Cascade Reading, a platform designed to help with reading comprehension, says he welcomes the change.
"I think it's a great move," he told Fox News Digital last Tuesday.
Close-up of a pencil on a page of an SAT college entrance exam preparation book, taken on August, 6, 2017, in Melville, New York. (Thomas A. Ferrara/Newsday RM via Getty Images)
"The reason I believe that is because of the data we're getting from the teachers and staff who are actually using this digital format. Some of the research that's been done by, I believe the SAT, on the digital format [shows that] 84% of students and 99% of staff reported a better experience with it compared to the paper format. That's a huge proportion."
According to Forbes, the new digitized version slashes some of the testing time for students, meaning test-takers will only have to sit still for two hours and 14 minutes and answer a total of 98 questions, compared to the 3-hour and 154-question length of the traditional pencil and paper format.
It's a good way to ease some anxiety students might have about the exam, Dempsey said.
"If we're trying to measure student ability… in theory, we don't want to measure how well they do in a 3-hour, extremely stressful environment. We want to measure how good is their reading comprehension to these passages, so I think the digital format is taking away a lot of barriers and anxiety that these students are facing."
The College Board's SAT is being transformed for the digital age. The ACT has taken a similar approach, though paper and pencil versions are available. (James Sheppard/Future via Getty Images)
Its structure differs from the old format as well.
The new test features a more streamlined process – one section of reading and writing and another with math. The original test, however, asked students to complete two math sections as well as separate reading and writing sections. Students are now allowed to use an on-screen calculator on both math sections, whereas the old test required some mental math.
Education source Chalkbeat highlighted some of the other stark differences – no more reading long passages, adaptive questioning that will get easier if the student misses multiple on the first section and the math section contains a built-in graphing calculator students can use for the duration of the exam.
Dempsey, who is affiliated with Cascade Reading, which helps students with text comprehension, said moving to the online platform might also be a good way to give neurodivergent students options for their fonts, allowing them to tailor the test to their preferences.
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"I think that's a really good move," he said of the shortened passages, noting that the measure is similar to what Cascade does with text as well.
"I think, especially with reading session sections, a lot of students feel anxious, and they see just a big block of text, and they get really worried, so that's some of the work that I do at Cascade Reading. Our whole mission and goal is to make text more accessible, and we do that by chunking and making the structure of the written text visually accessible for students so that they can read and understand what it is they're reading."
Another change that might give students a sigh of relief – their results should be ready in days instead of weeks.
Priscilla Rodriguez, senior vice president of college readiness assessments at College Board, the organization that creates and distributes the SAT, said the changes are largely due to the test-optional policy that many universities still have post-pandemic.
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"If we’re launching a test that is largely optional, how do we make it the most attractive option possible?" Rodriguez said, according to the report. "If students are deciding to take a test, how do we make the SAT the one they want to take?"
The SAT is one of the two top college admissions exams students have opted to take for decades. Its rival, the ACT, began offering online exam options in February, according to its website, but the paper and pencil option is still available.
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