Processes and effects of test preparation for writing tasks in a high-stakes admission test in China: Implications for test takers

2021 ◽  
Vol 70 ◽  
pp. 101015
Author(s):  
Shasha Xu
Keyword(s):  
Test Preparation ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Admission Test

scholarly journals Third through Sixth Graders' Perceptions of High-Stakes Testing

2005 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheri Foster Triplett ◽  
Mary Alice Barksdale
Keyword(s):  
Test Anxiety ◽  
Test Preparation ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
Sixth Graders ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Content Areas ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
High Stakes Tests ◽  
Written Descriptions

This study examined elementary students' perceptions of high-stakes testing through the use of drawings and writings. On the day after students completed their high-stakes tests in the spring, 225 students were asked to “draw a picture about your recent testing experience.” The same students then responded in writing to the prompt “tell me about your picture.” During data analysis, nine categories were constructed from the themes in students' drawings and written descriptions: Emotions, Easy, Content Areas, Teacher Role, Student Metaphors, Fire, Power/Politics, Adult Language, and Culture of Testing. Each of these categories was supported by drawings and written descriptions. Two additional categories were compelling because of their prevalence in students' drawings: Accoutrements of Testing and Isolation. The researchers examine the prevailing negativity in students' responses and suggest ways to decrease students' overall test anxiety, including making changes in the overall testing culture and changing the role teachers play in test preparation.

scholarly journals Predictability of IELTS in a high-stakes context: a mixed methods study of Chinese students’ perspectives on test preparation

2022 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hui Ma ◽  
Sin Wang Chong
Keyword(s):  
Online Survey ◽  
Test Preparation ◽  
Mixed Methods Study ◽  
Language Test ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Test Taking ◽  
Language Tests ◽  
Group Interviews ◽  
Method Approach ◽  
Repeated Test

AbstractHigh-stakes language tests are used around the world as a gatekeeping tool under the internationalization of higher education. However, the predictable aspect of the high-stakes language tests is seldom discussed, especially from students’ perspectives. This study aims to address this gap by aiming to better understand how certain factors and conditions contribute to the predictability issue of IELTS from students’ perspectives within a high-stakes context. This study used a mixed method approach to investigate the views and experiences of students within a Sino-UK joint college. The data collection was in two concurrent strands: online survey and group interviews. Findings suggested that IELTS can impact students negatively by narrowing their English learning scope, driving them into self-isolated way of study, doing repeated test-taking and buying predicted answers. Implications related to language test preparation are discussed in light of the findings.

Test-Based Education for Students with Disabilities and English Language Learners: The Impact of Assessment Pressures on Educational Planning

2016 ◽  
Vol 118 (14) ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Clyde Martin
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
School Improvement ◽  
Students With Disabilities ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Test Preparation ◽  
Impact Testing ◽  
School Life ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
The Impact

The article presents a longitudinal study of an urban charter middle school to examine the impact testing pressures can have on the education of students with disabilities and English language learners, and how this may lead to a narrowing of the content they are taught. The study examines various sources of data, including the school's evolving language, literacy, and math programs, high-stakes test results, school improvement plans, and written IEP goals. Over several years, as low test scores and failure to make AYP had an increasing impact on school life, skills specifically targeted on annual state tests became the guide for how math and literacy and language development were addressed. In effect, instruction in these areas became equated with test preparation. As ranges in proficiency led to ability grouping in pertinent courses, there was a narrowing of skills addressed in the lower-level classes that were entirely populated by students categorized as limited-English proficient and/or having a disability. In effect, this turned test preparation into the math and literacy curricula for these students, which in turn affected decisions regarding which skills would be addressed in students’ IEPs. Implications for schools, policy, and further research are suggested.

Undermining teaching: How education consultants view the impact of high-stakes test preparation on teaching

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (8) ◽  
pp. 1058-1074
Author(s):  
John Farvis ◽  
Stephen Hay
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Test Preparation ◽  
Instructional Planning ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
High Stakes Tests ◽  
Teacher Control ◽  
Adverse Impacts ◽  
Curriculum Narrowing ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Administrator Stress

The outcomes of high-stakes tests (HST) in New York schools have consequences for teachers and administrators, as students’ results became quality indicators for school administration and instruction. Education consultant’s views offer an independent perspective of the HST environment. Data were collected from education consultants through a survey and interviews. Findings linked HST with reduced teacher control in instructional planning, curriculum narrowing and increased test preparation. These practices were associated with decreased collaboration and increased teacher and administrator stress. Foucault’s “governmentality” and concepts of neoliberal education policy framed aspects of the study. This study indicates that the consequences of HST require critical interrogation as HST practices have adverse impacts on teacher and administrator agency and student outcomes.

Troubling the discourse of both/and: Technologies of neoliberal governance in community-based educational spaces

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 202-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kysa Nygreen
Keyword(s):  
Standardized Test ◽  
Test Preparation ◽  
Popular Education ◽  
After School ◽  
Pedagogical Practice ◽  
Community Based ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Organizational Mission ◽  
Neoliberal Reform ◽  
Neoliberal Governance

This article traces the work of community-based popular educators with an explicit commitment to “Freirean” popular education as they shifted from teaching in a community-based setting to an after-school program focused on standardized test-preparation. Drawing from ethnographic observation and interviews, it examines educators’ pedagogical practice and the narratives they employed to explain, interpret, and justify their practice. It shows that they adopted a “discourse of both/and,” asserting the possibility and virtues of doing Freirean popular education and high-stakes test preparation simultaneously, without sacrificing the integrity of either. It argues that this discourse was a pragmatic adaptation to structural imperatives but also a limiting one that facilitated the intensification of workload, individual responsibilization, and a shifting of organizational mission in ways that align with neoliberal reform. Drawing from Foucauldian analyses of audit culture, this article troubles the discourse of both/and by exposing how it operates as a technology of neoliberal governance even when cloaked in the language of social justice.

Parental Involvement in National EFL Test Preparation

RELC Journal ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 427-439
Author(s):  
Saraswati Dawadi
Keyword(s):  
Parental Involvement ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
National Level ◽  
Test Preparation ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
High Stakes Tests ◽  
Context Data ◽  
High Level ◽  
Academic Lives

Parents, one of the primary stakeholders in their child’s performance in tests, can play a vital role in assessment. As these high-stakes tests are likely to bring life-changing consequences to students’ lives, most parents try their best to help their children to prepare for them. However, almost no research has explored the nature of parental involvement (PI) in preparing for high-stakes tests. This article reports on a study that explored PI in preparing their children for a national level English as a foreign language (EFL) test in the Nepalese context. Data was generated through a survey of 247 students, 72 oral diary entries and 24 interviews with six students and their parents. The data indicated a high level of PI in their children’s test preparation. Parents supported their children in various ways, such as creating a conducive learning environment at home, collaborating with neighbours and relatives, sharing their experiences, and teaching test preparation strategies. Parents even pressured their children into working for the test by controlling their non-academic lives in such a way that, during the test preparation time, children were not allowed to play and their time for sleeping was curtailed. A clear difference could be observed between the parents with university degrees and those who were illiterate in terms of the strategies they used to support their children in preparing for the test.

scholarly journals Preparing for High-Stakes Admissions Tests: A Moderation Mediation Analysis

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 32
Author(s):  
Jed. I. Appelrouth ◽  
DeWayne Moore ◽  
Karen M. Zabrucky ◽  
Janelle H. Cheung
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Functional Model ◽  
Test Preparation ◽  
School Type ◽  
Start Time ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Homework Completion ◽  
Sat Preparation ◽  
Positive Direct ◽  
The Relationship

For decades researchers have examined the effects of SAT preparation, but only recently have they begun to explore the factors that inform successful test preparation (Appelrouth & Zabrucky, 2717). In their regression analysis of the factors of successful SAT preparation, Appelrouth, Moore, & Zabrucky (2015) found significant effects of homework completion, instructional hours, practice and official testing, distribution of study, and timing of test preparation. The current study builds upon that research in constructing a functional model of SAT preparatory factors. It was hypothesized that direct and indirect relationships would exist between preparatory factors, and that some of these relationships would be moderated by student characteristics such as gender and socioeconomic status. Archival data from 1,933 students were analyzed, and significant direct relations were reported between tutoring start time and the following variables: session distribution, individual tutoring hours, group tutoring hours, homework completion, number of official tests, number of practice tests and total SAT increase. Commencing test preparation earlier yielded positive direct and indirect effects, and session distribution, individual and group tutoring hours, and official SAT and practice SAT tests all mediated the relationship between start time and SAT score increase. School type and socioeconomic status moderated the relationship between start time and individual tutoring hours, and school type also moderated the relationship between homework completion and score increase. The results of this analysis have implications for the thousands of high schools and educational entities that offer SAT coaching programs. By encouraging earlier program start times, adequate instructional hours, distribution of sessions and practice effects, administrators can create more effective SAT preparation programs to serve their college-bound students.

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