Why is that when you take certain test in school they ask you whats your race?

Question

Why is that when you take certain test in school they ask you whats your race?

Answer 1

Simply put? Statistical purposes. But, you could just as easily say you don't want to answer.

Answer 2

I think the purpose of that question is to identify whether the test is culturally or racially biased so that the test can be improved in future revisions. Some questions on tests can be worded in such a way that they are outside of the sphere of personal experience for some individuals from different heritages.

For example, an Aboriginal Australian may have trouble answering a question about statistics in basketball if he or she has never seen the game played and doesn't know the rules.

The people who create these intelligence tests wish to improve the methods which they use to measure intelligence and want to remove as much of the margin for error as possible. If the results of the tests indicate that one cultural group is scoring lower than others on the tests, it is likely to be the fault of the test and not a reflection of the intelligence of the test-takers.

Answer 3

They are gathering comparative statistical data so they can place your test score with others in your selected category and compare them to the other categories..

Let's assume there are 100 people taking a test of those 100 people 25 list their race as Hispanic 34 list their race as Caucasian 26 list their race as African American and 15 list their race as other...

When the test scores are compiled researchers can look at the various scores for a given group and compare them to the scores of the other groups..

By camparing the data of the different groups researchers can learn about the test.. Is it racially/culturally biased for instance,  did all or the majority of the participants who marked Other score very low or  very high in comparison to other groups?  If so the make up of the test may be racially/culturally biased to give those in the "Other" group a better or worse chance of scoring high in comparison to the other groupings...

Answer 4

staticits really but i think its all stupid