FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 1, 2013

Contact: Will Patterson T: 240-778-3530 Email: wpatter1@terpmail.umd.edu

UMD Professor Releases Book, Condemns Test-Happy Society

Tests are a major part of American society, in all forms. Many college graduates will be subject to testing while looking for employment. Employers look at the results of SAT scores as well as drug tests during evaluation. F. Allan Hanson, professor of anthropology at the University of Maryland and author of a new book condemning testing, thinks society must stop these practices. The book, Testing Testing: Social Consequences of the Examined Life, uncovers a variety of hidden consequences, many of them unsavory, of tests commonly used in business and education. Hanson recommends eliminating most drug tests, intelligence and aptitude tests, and lie detector or integrity tests. The American preoccupation with testing has resulted in panoply of techniques dedicated to scanning, probing, weighing, pursuing and recording every last detail of our personal traits and life experiences, Hanson says. Hanson believes it should be possible to eliminate much of the testing used to predict behavior and aptitudes. He cites that college admissions offices no longer require

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scores from aptitude tests such as the American College Test, ACT, the Scholastic Aptitude Test or GMAT as an application requirement. Hanson says tests that measure performance, such as what a student has learned in class or skills mastered for a job, are useful. Conversely, he argues that tests designed to predict behavior or aptitude, tend to have undesired consequences. Scores from IQ tests, he says, can become life sentences for children with very high or very low scores, Tests assign people to various categories - genius, slow learner, security risk where they are then treated, act and come to think of themselves according to the expectations associated with those categories, Hanson says. The professor finds polygraph tests to be the largest problem, feeling it is vile, pornographic gaze into a persons life. He feels the test-taker is powerless to conceal anything, and with unreliable results, the test is not credible. This is one step further in the wrong direction in Hansons eyes. People are examined and evaluated less for qualifications or knowledge they already possess than for what the test results can predict about future actions or potential behavior. Hanson says. Decisions are made about people not on the basics of what they have done, or even what they certainly will do, but in terms of what they might do. The subject is fully investigated in Hansons book, published by University of California Press and available at local bookstores. You can also learn more about obtaining a copy by contacting Denise Cicourel at UC Press, 2120 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, Ca., 94720. ###