“The Tail Wagging the Dog”: High-Stakes Testing as a Mediating Context in Secondary Literacy-Related

2020 ◽  
Vol 122 (11) ◽  
pp. 1-47
Author(s):  
Julie E. Learned ◽  
Laura C. Dacus ◽  
Mary Jo Morgan ◽  
Kathryn S. Schiller ◽  
Guher Gorgun
Keyword(s):  
Test Performance ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Performance Testing ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
Secondary Source ◽  
School Life ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Promising Alternative ◽  
Alternative Routes

Background/Context High-stakes testing (HST) weaves through the fabric of school life, stretching beyond the test day. Results have consequences for a school's reputation and autonomy, as well as teachers’ evaluations and students’ graduation and morale. Prior research demonstrates the constraining and inequitable effects assessments can have on students’ learning. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study Recently, scholars have called for more research on students’ and teachers’ perspectives on HST. Responding to this call, we conducted a yearlong study in a high school designated as “persistently struggling” by the state. We examined adolescents’ and educators’ perceptions, reactions, and resistance to HST. We traced participants’ interactions with and about testing over the course of a school year as they prepared for, discussed, and eventually participated in test day. Research Design We conducted a yearlong qualitative study in which participants were 15 focal 11th graders and 9 teachers. We conducted 425 hours of observations and 52 interviews, as well as collected assessment data and classroom artifacts. For this article, we used quantitative survey data as a secondary source and analyzed the responses of 425 11th graders. Conclusions/Recommendations Analysis showed that HST served as a dominant context for literacy-related teaching across disciplines. Participants negotiated tension between their beliefs about education and their efforts to boost test scores. Teachers reported that assessments and their accompanying prescriptive curriculum hindered literacy and content area teaching and learning. Students, although they had diverse opinions about HST's usefulness, reported it created emotional distress, which compromised test performance. Testing contributed to a high-pressure environment in which literacy and content instruction were made reductive. Participants’ perspectives, and ways in which they resisted, provide insights into HST effects, as well as suggest promising, alternative routes toward equitable assessment that supports meaningful learning.

Engaging Exam-Oriented Students in Communicative Language Teaching by ‘Packaging’ Learning English Through Songs as Exam Practice

RELC Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 003368822097854
Author(s):  
Kevin Wai-Ho Yung
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
Communicative Language Teaching ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Secondary English ◽  
Language Curriculum ◽  
Teachers And Students

Literature has long been used as a tool for language teaching and learning. In the New Academic Structure in Hong Kong, it has become an important element in the senior secondary English language curriculum to promote communicative language teaching (CLT) with a process-oriented approach. However, as in many other English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL) contexts where high-stakes testing prevails, Hong Kong students are highly exam-oriented and expect teachers to teach to the test. Because there is no direct assessment on literature in the English language curriculum, many teachers find it challenging to balance CLT through literature and exam preparation. To address this issue, this article describes an innovation of teaching ESL through songs by ‘packaging’ it as exam practice to engage exam-oriented students in CLT. A series of activities derived from the song Seasons in the Sun was implemented in the ESL classrooms in a secondary school in Hong Kong. Based on the author’s observations and reflections informed by teachers’ and students’ comments, the students were first motivated, at least instrumentally, by the relevance of the activities to the listening paper in the public exam when they saw the similarities between the classroom tasks and past exam questions. Once the students felt motivated, they were more easily engaged in a variety of CLT activities, which encouraged the use of English for authentic and meaningful communication. This article offers pedagogical implications for ESL/EFL teachers to implement CLT through literature in exam-oriented contexts.

High-Stakes Testing: Worth the Price?

1997 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 345-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen P. Gordon ◽  
Marianne Reese
Keyword(s):  
School Districts ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
High Performing Schools ◽  
High Performing ◽  
Depth Data ◽  
Negative Side Effects ◽  
Learning School ◽  
Texas School Districts

The Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) is a classic case of the high-stakes test, accompanied by rewards for high performing schools and sanctions for lower performing schools. In this study, over 100 teachers from Texas school districts completed open-ended surveys on how they prepare students for TAAS and the effects of the test on students, teachers, and schools. Twenty of the survey respondents engaged in interviews to gather in-depth data on their perceptions of TAAS. Results provide preliminary indications that, for many schools, high-stakes testing has become the object rather than the measure of teaching and learning, with negative side effects on curriculum, teacher decision making, instruction, student learning, school climate, and teacher and student self-concept and motivation.

scholarly journals Testing, Stress, and Performance: How Students Respond Physiologically to High-Stakes Testing

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-50
Author(s):  
Jennifer A. Heissel ◽  
Emma K. Adam ◽  
Jennifer L. Doleac ◽  
David N. Figlio ◽  
Jonathan Meer
Keyword(s):  
Standardized Testing ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Stress Responses ◽  
Test Performance ◽  
Physiological Stress ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Regular School ◽  
The Difference ◽  
And Performance

We examine how students' physiological stress differs between a regular school week and a highstakes testing week, and we raise questions about how to interpret high-stakes test scores. A potential contributor to socioeconomic disparities in academic performance is the difference in the level of stress experienced by students outside of school. Chronic stress – due to neighborhood violence, poverty, or family instability – can affect how individuals' bodies respond to stressors in general, including the stress of standardized testing. This, in turn, can affect whether performance on standardized tests is a valid measure of students' actual ability. We collect data on students' stress responses using cortisol samples provided by low-income students in New Orleans. We measure how their cortisol patterns change during high-stakes testing weeks relative to baseline weeks. We find that high-stakes testing is related to cortisol responses, and those responses are related to test performance. Those who responded most strongly – with either increases or decreases in cortisol – scored 0.40 standard deviations lower than expected on the high-stakes exam.

High-Stakes Testing, Standardization, and Inequality in the United States

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wayne Au
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Standardized Tests ◽  
Students Of Color ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
The United States ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Racial Achievement

High-stakes standardized tests standardize which knowledge is assessed, and because consequences are tied to their results, they have the impact of standardizing classroom content, teaching, and learning. The result is that students whose cultural identities do not fit the standardized norms created by test-based must either adapt or are left out of the curriculum and the classroom. This happens in a few key ways. First, as schools face increased pressure to raise test scores, curriculum content that embraces the diversity of student history, culture, and experience gets pushed out. In turn, this standardization of content limits the diversity of teacher and student identities expressed in classroom pedagogical experiences. Finally, given the disparate racial achievement on high-stakes tests, students of color face more intense pressure to perform, while at the same time their educational experiences become increasingly restricted and less rich than those of affluent, whiter students. Additionally, even though educational research has consistently shown that high-stakes testing correlates most strongly with the socioeconomic backgrounds of students and their communities, policymakers and many educators presume that these tests are offer objective measurements of individual merit. This mistaken belief ulitmately serves to hide and justify existing inequalities in the United States under the notion of individual achievement. The overall result being that high-stakes, standardized tests reproduce educational inequalities associated with race and class in the United States.

Beyond the Tyranny of Testing

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Kenneth J. Gergen ◽  
Scherto R. Gill
Keyword(s):  
Quality Control ◽  
Test Performance ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
League Tables ◽  
Individual Potential ◽  
Schooling Process ◽  
Student Test ◽  
Teachers Professional Development ◽  
International League

This book starts by highlighting the different purposes of evaluation in education, including its contribution to student learning, teachers’ professional development, the school community’s progress, and the informed participation of parents and other stakeholders. However, largely owing to the current educational system that structures schools as factories, the pursuit of these goals has led to increased reliance on assessment devices such as exams, grades, and high-stakes testing. Functioning as a form of quality control, such practices now dominate the schooling process. Students are tested more than ever before, teachers and schools undergo measurement on a continuing basis, and nations compete for places on international league tables. The result is student test performance becoming the only aim of education, turning the measurement into the goal itself. Furthermore, standardization as such masks individual potential and suppresses creativity. Combined with mounting stress on students, teachers, and school leaders, alternatives to assessment must be sought.

scholarly journals Are High School Students Accurate in Predicting Their AP Exam Scores?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teresa Ober ◽  
Maxwell Hong ◽  
Matt Carter ◽  
Alex Brodersen ◽  
Daniella Alves Reboucas
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Test Performance ◽  
Parental Education ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
School Students ◽  
Self Assessment ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Overconfidence Bias ◽  
Ap Exam

Are high school students accurate in predicting test performance? If so, do their predictions explain variation in performance, even after accounting for other factors? We examined these questions in two testing contexts (low-stakes and high-stakes) among students enrolled in a high school advanced placement (AP) statistics class. We found that even two months before taking the exam, students were moderately accurate in predicting their scores on the actual AP exam (κweighted = .62). When the same variables were entered into models predicting inaccuracy and overconfidence bias, results did not provide evidence that age, gender, parental education, number of math classes previously taken, or course engagement accounted for variation in accuracy. Overconfidence bias was associated with the students’ school. Results indicated that students’ predictions of performance were positively associated with performance in both low- and high-stakes testing contexts. The findings shed light on ways to leverage students’ self-assessment for learning.

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