The Cultural Literacy Test

Test Information
• The Cultural Literacy Test
• The publication date was 1989
• This review appeared in the 12th Mental Measurement Yearbook
Purpose
The purpose of this test is to assess students’ general knowledge in the humanities, sciences and social sciences. The test should determine whether or not students are prepared to productively function in the real world outside of school.
What does it measure?
This test measured their level of cultural literacy. The test was based off of Hirsch’s definition of cultural literacy.
Audience?
The test is designed for 11th and 12th graders.
History of the test
The test had a very short shelf life in relation to assessments. It was published in 1989, and by 1999 it was out of print. The Cultural Literacy Foundation, a non-profit that was passionate about the upward movement of education, created the test.
Validity
Validity is extremely weak in this test. It appears that the main issues of this test deals with the weaknesses found in construct, predictive, and content validity. The test had two reviewers, and both agreed that this test was extremely flawed. The first reviewer stated that the CLT’s results were compared to the unknown top four standardized tests of achievement of the time. However, it should be questioned why were these specific tests chosen and what does the results reveal. The CLT did not answer those questions. The tests may or may not have been similar, but because we do not know what the unknown tests measured, the construct validity could be viewed as weak in this regard. The correlations (between .40 and .70) also showed that the data of the CLT yielded similar or different results of the tests that were compared. Or it could measure both result...

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... I hope to impart on my students skills and a cultural responsive mindset necessary to succeed in the ‘real world’. The CLT, however, does not adequately prepare students to be productive citizens due to the major validity issues. How can a test set out with one objective, but there is not sound evidence that the test is doing what it is intended to do? Also, the reliability issues of lack of varied assessment tasks, re-test option, and equivalence in the 2 forms force the user to potentially interpret the scores incorrectly. Because they are only given random 5 questions rooted in such large content areas, it applies additional unnecessary pressure to students taking the test. The idea of the test and its’ goals are fantastic, but the issues in validity and reliability makes this test useless in determining how well one will succeed in life outside of school.