A total of 39 respondents (10 percent) use CAT for initial assessment. Two respondents for initial assessment. Two respondents who use CAT remarked that "it can give false assessment of skills-usually lower than remarked that "it can give false assessment of skills-usually lower than normal" and that "the written section does not necessary accurately reflect the student's placement." According to a recent review (Soares, 2005), CAT-3 is a well-constructed measure of basic academic skills in reading and mathematics. However, this test was not designed for the adult population; it was designed for students aged 11 to 20 years old. The norms, which were developed from a sample of 44,529 students from the public school system, are expressed as a grade equivalent score. Therefore, it is highly likely that CAT-3 will give a distorted assessment of skills for the adult population.
The Canadian Test of Basic Skills-Forms 7 and 8 (CTBS) was used by only three respondents (1 percent). An educator who works in a college stated that the CTBS "does not always accurately reflect the student's skills or abilities (i.e., sometimes weaker students score higher than their present skill level)." Another respondent who worked in a college that uses the CTBS commented, CTBS "has been used for many years-we understand that it doesn't test adults well and use it simply for initial placement." The fact that only three educators use this tool does not sound very significant. But, when one considers the number of students who have been assessed over the years with this tool, one realizes the impact of a single tool used by a few people.
Some institutions continue to use the same tool, despite their awareness of the tool's limitations. Although there are no data to verify this assumption, one could assume that some educators develop an emotional attachment to the tests they use. The educators are cognizant of the limitations of a test, yet they continue to use the test because they are familiar with its administration, scoring, and interpretation. This familiarity, in turn, creates a level of comfort with the test.
Bias occurs in testing when items systematically measure differently for ethnic, gender, or age groups. Many of the respondents commented that the tests they used contained cultural bias, particularly towards First Nations and ESL students.