A US-style intelligence test seen by government advisers as helping disadvantaged youngsters get into 
university actually favours white boys from grammar schools, research has found.
A government inquiry into university admissions, headed by Professor Steven Schwartz, vice-chancellor of Brunel University, recommended the use of American SATs – tests in maths, critical thinking and writing – as a means of helping to improve the chances of young people from disadvantaged homes getting a place at one of Britain’s universities. But, a team of researchers from the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) has now concluded that they have the opposite effect. The researchers said: “Some students appeared to perform less well on the SAT than expected: females compared to males and Asian, Chinese and those whose ethnicity was unknown compared to white students; whereas students in grammar schools did better than might be expected compared to comprehensive students.”
Their findings echo concerns being expressed about the tests in the United States.
The NFER researchers looked at the results of 9,000 pupils who took part in a pilot of the SATs tests organised by the Sutton Trust – the education charity headed by the millionaire philanthropist Sir Peter Lampl dedicated to increasing the take-up of places at elite universities by young people from disadvantaged groups.
Many universities were waiting in the wings to see the results of the Sutton Trust pilot before deciding whether to go down the route of some elite British universities in using the SATs admission tests.
The research threw up some interesting findings about the performance of pupils on free school meals – saying they performed better than their GCSE or A-level results would suggest in critical reading, but worse in maths. Overall, though, there was no difference between them and the rest – although the researchers pointed out that very few of children receiving free school meals were included in the pilot of top performing pupils in the schools that took part.
The findings appear to confirm fears already expressed in the US – that middle-class families, whose children are more likely to make it into grammar schools, can more easily afford coaching for the tests. In addition, their schools are likely to spend more time preparing their pupils for them. In a speech, Richard Atkinson, president of the University of California, said: “I visited an upscale private school and observed a class of 12-year-old students studying verbal analogies in anticipation of the SAT. The time involved was not aimed at developing the students’ reading and writing abilities but rather their test-taking skills.”
Ministers have so far indicated that – while they want to widen participation among disadvantaged groups in higher education – they will leave it up to individual universities to decide how best to pursue this goal.
The research findings, presented at an international conference in Cambridge organised by Cambridge Assessment – the parent body for three exam groups – coincide with a speech from Alison Richard, vice-chancellor of Cambridge University, which warned against government interference in university admissions.
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