Educational Testing in Hungary Bend Csapo Attila Jozsef University the educational system became highly selective. The selection took What has been the role of educational testing in Hungar- place by means of several examina- ian education? How are the political changes in the coun- tions. Both oral and written exams played a significant role, but testing try expected to affect testing in the future? was almost unknown and never used in practice. Origins of Systematic Evaluation oday Hungary faces one of the Historical Background The most prestigious, regulated, and Tgreatest challenges in its his- As a consequence of geographical organized examination was (and still tory: after 40 years of limited free- location, Hungarian culture has tra- is) the matura, which was taken at dom the country has to find its own ditionally been strongly influenced the end of high school in order to way of development. As one of the by the German-speaking countries. apply for entry to a university. The newly founded Central European In certain historical periods and in matura was first introduced in Prus- democracies, Hungary is seeking its some domains, French and, to a sia in 1788. In Hungary, the first original traditions, trying to recon- lesser extent, Anglo-Saxon influence matura examinations were held in struct its natural European relation- was also detectable. While the origin 1851. Their basic function was to ships and to redefine its place in the of modern formal education goes limit the number of applicants to the modern world. This transitional pro- back to the Austro-Hungarian em- universities. After World War I, the cess stimulates a great deal of discus- pire, there are many German/ class-selection feature of the matura sion at every level of society, includ- Austrian traces in the present Hun- became dominant: it was a precondi- ing general and specific questions of garian educational system, and its tion for entering the higher social the educational system. While the development is very similar to the classes. Since its beginnings, the contradiction between decentraliza- educational systems in other Cen- muturu was always taken before a tion in the control of the educational tral European countries. committee and it consisted of two system and the relatively high na- The end of World War I became a parts: a written and an oral section. tional standards cannot be handled turning point in the history of A regulation from 1884 defined the without proper evaluation tech- Central Europe. The Austro-Hungar- five subjects of the matura as lan- niques, one of the crucial issues is ian empire disintegrated and Hun- guage arts, Latin, history, mathe- what role evaluation and testing gary became an independent state. matics and physics. This idea re- should play in the schools of the Between the two wars, schools in mained more or less unchanged future. Hungary were dominated by reli- until World War 11. gious, conservative, and national The two main trends in thinking This article reviews the develop- values. The idea of excellence and about education during this era ment of educational testing in Hun- high standards have been guiding might be characterized by the works gary in the light of recent changes. principles. Emphasis on the national of Ern6 Finaczy, who represented a The main evaluation tendencies will culture and quality education were Herbartian, theoretical-philosophi- be presented within a historical considered to be the means for cal approach, and by Laszlo Nagy, framework. The state of testing in maintaining or improving the posi- who emphasized psychological as- the last decade, present work, and tion of the country within the re- pects of education and the empirical predictable future developments will gion. The availability and quality of study of children. Finaczy was in- also be discussed. Although this schooling was significantly improved volved in devising and improving the article discusses the development of in this period, but it was not pro- examination systems. He worked on testing in a broad sense, including vided at the same level for every the more strict and detailed rules for all kinds of systematic evaluation, young citizen. The distribution of the maturu, while Nagy carried out a the terms test and testing will be schooling was highly uneven. A used in their narrow meaning. These small portion of the population re- terms refer to the use of formal ceived a really outstanding educa- Ben6 Csapd is a professor in the measurement instruments to assess tion, while large masses were barely Departments of Education and Psychol- student academic achievement. provided with elementary-level in- ogy at Attila Jdzsef University, Petofi sgt. Other forms of oral or written exams struction. In order to preserve high 30-34, H-6722 Szeged, Hungary. He will be differentiated from them. quality schooling for a few students, specializes in educational measurement. Summer 1992 5 large-scale survey using question- objectivism” and were banned by Hungary has been participating in naires on the effect of war on every possible means. The Stalinist the major IEA studies (Science, children’s emotional development as system was broken by the revolution Reading Comprehension, English, early as 1916. One of L. Nagy’s of 1956. After the revolution had Second Mathematics Study, Written followers, Gabor Kemhy (1934), been suppressed and its participants Composition, Second Science Study, wrote the first comprehensive book punished, a slow opening to the West Computers in Education, Pre-Pri- on educational evaluation in Hun- started at the end of the decade. mary Study, Reading-Literacy gary. In his work, based on previous The beginning of the third period Study). empirical studies, he argued against can be set in the early sixties. State The IEA studies first put the the routine use of marks. He out- control was gradually restricted to achievements of the Hungarian edu- lined the psychological principles of ideologically sensitive fields like the- cational system into an interna- “proper evaluation,” by which he ory and history of education, while tional context. This resulted in some meant a qualitative, verbal, motivat- the politically neutral problems of interesting, sometimes surprising, ing, and formative type of evaluation instruction, including testing and findings and inspired further evalu- instead of the use of scales or measurement, were left to the ex- ation research and development numbers for grading. perts. Thus, after a while there projects in Hungary. For example, emerged two more or less indepen- there was a large discrepancy be- The Post-War Period dent groups, which did not encroach tween the mathematics and science on each other’s territory. One worked scores on the one hand and the From the point of view of the under the prevailing ideological um- development of educational testing reading comprehension scores on brella dealing with test theory, and the other. Hungarian students were in Hungary, the post-war era can be the other moved toward western- divided into three major periods. usually ranked first in mathematics oriented empirical research. From and science, but performed poorly on Due to political overdetermination, the mid-seventies, empirical work the shift from one period to another reading comprehension when com- received more financial support, and pared on an international basis. roughly coincides with political probably this marked the renais- events. Although the positive results re- sance of educational research in ceived very little publicity for a long The short period of 1945-49 was Hungary. the beginning of a pluralistic democ- time, they helped educational ex- racy. During the first years right perts to defend the real values of the after the war, representatives of Research Projects in educational system in several discus- reform pedagogy, liberal left-wing Educational Testing sions with party bureaucrats. The thinking, and humanistic approaches In educational testing two major high achievements have recently to schooling dominated the theoreti- research centers have developed, attracted the attention of research- cal discussions. In practice, the and during the last decades most ers in highly industrialized coun- founding of a new school system educational evaluation programs tries, and cross-cultural research required great effort, and less atten- have been carried out or directed by projects have been launched to find tion was paid to such specific ques- these two centers. At the beginning, out how education can work so well tions as evaluation or testing. both groups were formed by individ- in some fields while using such In 1949 the communist party took uals sharing similar research inter- slender resources. On the other power, and this meant the beginning ests, and they created their institu- hand, the poor scores in reading of the “dark fifties.” Leading posi- tional framework step by step. Today highlighted the weaknesses in the tions were occupied by party-backed both groups work as formal insti- teaching of reading. While the Hun- apparatchiks and educational theo- tutes. Their development can be garian language uses the phonetic rists, and researchers who did not characterized by some of their pro- way of writing and it is relatively accept the ideology of Marxism and grams and publications. easy to acquire basic reading skills, Leninism were forced to leave the The first group was founded by e.g., to read a word letter by letter, universities and research institu- hpad Kiss in the National Institute little emphasis was put on higher tions or in some cases were even for Education (NIE, formerly Scien- text-processing and comprehension taken to prison. Soviet textbooks on tific Institute of Pedagogy). In the skills. (Concerning the evaluation of education and psychology were trans- post-war period Kiss first conceptual- reading performance, see Kadar- lated and considered the only authen- ized the questions of measurement, Fulop, 1985.) tic sources of information.