Avram Tucker Distinguished Scholar and Professor of Management Herman Aguinis of the George Washington University School of Business had an article that suggests reasons for bias in standardized testing published by the Journal of Applied Psychology.
The article addresses a key issue regarding diversity, equity and inclusion and is directly related to the June 2023 U.S. Supreme Court case on Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard about affirmative action. It explains that predictive bias affects decisions like college admissions and job placements, and the research finds that when predictive bias exists, different groups with the same test scores are predicted differently. For instance, two students with the same SAT are not predicted to have identical GPAs due to bias.
The research also challenges historical findings that bias is small or non-existent and argues that it's pivotal to view the scientific observations about racial and ethnic differences in standardized testing through the lens of historical contexts.