Legos Integrated Into Aptitude Tests

While most high school students depend on Number 2 pencils and study books to get through the SAT, a group of New York City students will get to use Legos as they face tests for college admissions.

Deborah Bial, a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard's Graduate School of Education (GSE), has designed a new college aptitude test centered around communication skills and small group activities--testing that includes building robots with Legos.

Nine prominent U.S. colleges have agreed to factor scores from the Bial-Dale College Adaptability Index test into their admissions decisions, and by December, some 700 New York City public school students will have taken the test's inaugural version.

Bial's index is not meant to replace the SAT or any other current standard, Bial said, but is instead a "tool that can be used to help college admissions officers broaden the way they assess and admit applicants."

Bial described the test as a series of interactive workshops. One hundred students undergo testing at the same time, in groups of 10 or 12. Each group takes a different test, aimed at measuring skills students need in their college careers: communication, leadership, strategic thinking and organizational skills.

The students are tested in different groups for a total of three hours, and trained evaluators score each student individually.

In one section, students must use a set of Lego building blocks to construct a duplicate of a robot sitting in another room. Only one student is allowed to view the robot at a time and must orally report his or her findings to the rest of the group.

The goal isn't necessarily to finish building the robot, Bial said, but rather to demonstrate initiative and an ability to solve complicated problems.

To calculate the final score, evaluators also interview students individually.

Bial's inspiration to design the test, which is being funded by the Mellon Foundation, came as she worked to recruit students for the Posse Foundation, an organization she founded 10 years ago that helps New York City public high school students attend college.

The 700 students who applied for the Posse Foundation scholarships are those who will participate in the Bial-Dale College Adaptability Index.

After the Posse students are chosen, the top 100 students will be admitted to nine participating universities, including Pennsylvania State, Rutgers, the Universities of Michigan and Delaware, and five liberal arts colleges--Beloit, Carleton, Colorado, Grinnell and Macalester.

With a number of U.S. colleges and universities reducing or eliminating their affirmative action programs, Bial said her test was as a way "to help continue to recruit diverse student groups."

The universities will use the results of this index "heavily but not exclusively," she said.

After the students are considered, Bial said she will track their progress throughout their college careers.

Larry A. Griffith, director of admissions at the University of Delaware, emphasized that this test will be used in addition to grades and test scores. He said he sees this as a way to identify promising students by non-traditional means.

"We're pretty excited about participating in this research," he said.

According to Griffith, the research will be used to determine whether "life experience, motivation, potential to work well in groups" can be "measured and quantified."

Although Bial said all the universities involved are excited that there might be a new way to assess students' merit, University of Michigan spokesperson Julie Peterson said that participation in this study will not affect the overwhelming majority of applicants who do not submit results from Bial's test.

Gary A. Orfield, professor of education and social policy at GSE and Bial's academic advisor, said that this program is still "in its very early stages," and questions remain about what value the test will ultimately have in the admissions process.

But, Griffith said, the research made possible by Bial's work is a "wonderful opportunity...that deserves to be looked at very seriously."