Research and Development and chief psychometrician for the Graduate Management Admission Council.
To articulate a guiding principle at GMAC, CEO Dave Wilson often quotes Harry Bosch, the protagonist of several Michael Connelly novels, who said, “Everybody matters, or no one matters.” With management education now a global field, and with 59 percent of the GMAT exams taken by non-US citizens, GMAC makes special efforts to assure that every GMAT exam is fair and appropriate for every single test taker. But what is fairness, and what steps does GMAC take to assure fairness for each test taker?
Fairness as Lack of Bias
The GMAT exam is designed so that those who are high in ability will score well, and those who are less able will score less well, regardless of gender, nationality, or native language. These efforts start with formal guidelines on writing culturally appropriate questions, which the authors of GMAT test questions must follow. Questions considered for the exam are subjected to formal fairness review panels. Pre-test data are analyzed to evaluate whether the probability of a correct response is the same for examinees of the same ability, regardless of cultural background. We also conduct and publish validity studies that examine the predictive power of the GMAT by gender, native language, and program type. In addition to identifying and eliminating questions that, based on statistics, function differently across culture groups, GMAC seeks to identify and eliminate language, words, phrases, and content that are either offensive to members of a culture group or makes members of one culture group, but not another, think about things that are not relevant to the test.
Fairness as Equitable Treatment
Fairness requires that all examinees be provided a comparable opportunity to perform on the test. Every step of the GMAT examination process, from the time you arrive at the test center, has been standardized. You complete the same check-in process and are given the same instructions as other test takers. Your tests are administered at comparable testing stations, with everyone taking the test on 17 inch (430 mm) monitors. In addition, everyone takes the Quantitative and Verbal sections of the GMAT as a computer adaptive test. Going several steps further than most testing companies, GMAC also assures that the computer adaptive testing algorithm gives everyone the same number of each question type, not counting pre-test questions.
Fairness as Equitable Outcomes
GMAC occasionally discovers individuals trying to cheat on the GMAT exam, which we view as grossly unfair to all honest test takers. Even the hint of cheating tarnishes our brand and potentially the value of GMAT scores. To combat cheating, GMAC has one of the most active security programs in the testing industry. Our palm vein technology can now identify imposter test takers in...