Bibliography: High Stakes Testing (page 26 of 95)

This annotated bibliography is reformatted and customized by the Center for Positive Practices.  Some of the authors featured on this page include Jill Urquhart, Wayne W. Au, Tammy Pandina Scot, Dixie D. Massey, Tony Wagner, Stephen G. Katsinas, Mercy C. Nyman, Spiros Papageorgiou, William C. Cala, and Carolyn M. Callahan.

Massey, Dixie D. (2006). "You Teach for Me; I've Had It!" A First-Year Teacher's Cry for Help, Action in Teacher Education. This case study describes the impact of high-stakes testing on a first-year teacher's literacy instruction. Results indicated that content from literacy methods courses was often abandoned in favor of compliance to a test preparatory program. As an intervention, I began teaching in the third-grade classroom while the beginning teacher observed. This model highlights the need for further consideration regarding the role of teacher educators in preparing and mentoring beginning teachers.   [More]  Descriptors: Methods Courses, High Stakes Tests, Beginning Teachers, Case Studies

Nyman, Mercy C. (2013). A Quantitative, Comparison Study: Oral Language Development and High Stakes Testing, ProQuest LLC. The amount of oral language exposure a young child receives affects the child's reading-readiness skills. Factors that affect the increase of language and thus affect the reading success of children include oral language ability, learning opportunities, and behaviors that young children experience. Oral language development includes gaining full phonological awareness and is the basis of phonemic awareness. When young children do not have sufficient vocabulary and literacy experiences, they will have limited reading fluency and comprehension. Oral language skills and habits may also be factors contributing to success in school-related tasks, such as reading. Difficulty in developing reading-readiness skills can indicate the student will have difficulties in future elementary grades, including having poor vocabulary, reading below grade level, and struggling to understand the curricula. Students may experience these deficiencies well into the high-stakes testing established as a result of the No Child Left Behind Act. The current study involved comparing two types of reading-readiness curricula (A Beka vs. A Beka and ELOLAAT). The curricula were compared by analyzing the differences in kindergarteners' subscores on the reading portion of the SAT. The data analysis shows that the scores of kindergarteners at School B (A Beka and ELOLAAT) were higher than the scores of kindergarteners at School A (A Beka only) to a statistically significant degree. Early educators can use the findings of this study to make informed decisions on how to most effectively help young children learn. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: www.proquest.com/en-US/products/disserta…   [More]  Descriptors: Oral Language, Statistical Analysis, Comparative Analysis, High Stakes Tests

Katsinas, Stephen G.; Bush, V. Barbara (2006). Assessing What Matters: Improving College Readiness 50 Years beyond "Brown", Community College Journal of Research & Practice. 50 years after the "Brown v. Board of Education" decision, a high-stakes testing movement, significantly boosted by provisions contained in No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, has emerged with the potential of both positive and negative implications. This paper argues that assessment generally is not tied to the 3 positive outcomes of urban, suburban, or rural schools–admission to college, military, and workforce entry–which are relevant to the private and public sectors, and to students and their parents. Benchmarking performance directly in relation to positive outcomes that matter is crucial if high-stakes testing, which ostensibly has as its purpose the improvement of overall system performance, is to be tied to all the desired outcomes that matter.   [More]  Descriptors: Court Litigation, Federal Legislation, Outcomes of Education, High Stakes Tests

Siegel, Harvey (2004). High Stakes Testing, Educational Aims and Ideals, and Responsible Assessment, Theory and Research in Education. School and government officials, system administrators and other policymakers offer a variety of reasons for engaging in high stakes testing: to monitor student performance, to measure teacher and/or school effectiveness, to ensure accountability, etc. Some of these reasons are good; others not. But the best reason–one that is never offered, because it is not true–is that such testing furthers our efforts to realize our considered educational aims and ideals. I argue that while some testing is perfectly legitimate, current high stakes testing practice is largely inimical to the achievement of our most defensible educational ends.   [More]  Descriptors: Student Evaluation, High Stakes Tests, Role of Education, Educational Assessment

Giroux, Henry A. (2016). When Schools Become Dead Zones of the Imagination: A Critical Pedagogy Manifesto, High School Journal. In this article Henry Giroux discusses corporate school reform movement and its detrimental impact on the public school system such as the closure of public schools in cities such as, Philadelphia, Chicago and New York to make way for charter schools. Giroux argues that corporate school reform is not simply obsessed with measurements that degrade any viable understanding of the connection between schooling and educating critically engaged citizens. The reform movement is also determined to underfund and disinvest resources for public schooling so that public education can be completely divorced from any democratic notion of governance, teaching and learning. Giroux goes on to say that market-driven educational reforms, with their obsession with standardization, high-stakes testing, and punitive policies, also mimic a culture of cruelty that neoliberal policies produce in the wider society. They exhibit contempt for teachers and distrust of parents, repress creative teaching, destroy challenging and imaginative programs of study and treat students as mere inputs on an assembly line. The situation is further worsened in that not only are public schools being defunded and public school teachers attacked as the new welfare queens, but social and economic policies are being enacted by Republicans and other right-wingers to ensure low-income and poor minority students fail in public schools. Under a pedagogy of repression, students are conditioned to unlearn any respect for democracy, justice, and what it might mean to connect learning to social change. They are told that they have no rights and that rights are limited only to those who have power. Giroux concludes that under neoliberalism, it has become more difficult to respond to the demands of the social contract, public good, and the social state, which have been pushed to the margins of society–viewed as both an encumbrance and a pathology. And yet such a difficulty must be overcome in the drive to reform public education. The struggle over public education is the most important struggle of the 21st century because it is one of the few public spheres left where questions can be asked, pedagogies developed, modes of agency constructed and desires mobilized, in which formative cultures can be developed that nourish critical thinking, dissent, civic literacy and social movements capable of struggling against those antidemocratic forces that are ushering in dark, savage and dire times. [Originally printed on Truthout, Tuesday, 13 August 2013.]   [More]  Descriptors: Educational Change, Democratic Values, Social Influences, Politics of Education

Banerjee, Jayanti; Papageorgiou, Spiros (2016). What's in a Topic? Exploring the Interaction between Test-Taker Age and Item Content in High-Stakes Testing, International Journal of Listening. The research reported in this article investigates differential item functioning (DIF) in a listening comprehension test. The study explores the relationship between test-taker age and the items' language domains across multiple test forms. The data comprise test-taker responses (N = 2,861) to a total of 133 unique items, 46 items of which were shared across two or more forms. Twenty-one items demonstrated DIF. However, there was no pattern by language domain. Eleven items showing DIF appeared in more than one test form but DIF for these items occurred only once.   [More]  Descriptors: Correlation, High Stakes Tests, Test Items, Listening Comprehension Tests

Wagner, Tony (2003). Reinventing America's Schools, Phi Delta Kappan. Challenges theory that high-stakes testing and accountability will improve student performance. Cites experience in New York and Boston where student test failure and dropouts have increased. Discusses success of Danish education reform efforts. Descriptors: Academic Achievement, Accountability, Educational Change, Elementary Secondary Education

Thibodeaux, Amy Krohn (2014). The Effects of Leadership and High-Stakes Testing on the Retention of Teachers, ProQuest LLC. The purpose of this study was to examine whether principal leadership behaviors and the demands of high-stakes tests had an impact on teachers' intent to remain in the teaching profession. Perceptions of teachers concerning the contributing factors that led to their intent to remain in the teaching profession were also examined. Factors included in this study were examined by the researcher in an effort to gain knowledge of what leads to teacher job satisfaction in the teaching profession. The researcher used a quantitative survey instrument with a qualitative component. The survey instrument was created by the researcher and consisted of seven sections. Sections included teacher demographic questions, Likert-scale perception questions which addressed principal leadership behaviors, teacher intention questions, teacher job satisfaction questions, teacher mentoring questions, intrinsic motivator questions, and five open-ended questions. Open-ended questions were found in the final section entitled self-reported factors. The survey instrument was distributed to K-12 teachers in public schools in south Mississippi. These state-measured and non-state-measured subject area teachers taught at elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools. When looking at overall quantitative data, the results of this study indicated that principal leadership had an effect on whether teachers would remain in the teaching profession, confirming what the literature said. In examining whether there was a difference in the levels of teacher job satisfaction between teachers of state-measured subject areas and teachers of non-state-measured subject areas, there was not a significant difference found, contradicting previous scholarship in this area. Analysis of data also suggested that there was a significant relationship found between teacher job satisfaction, teacher morale, and teacher mentoring programs with regard to teachers' intent to remain in the teaching profession. The findings on teacher job satisfaction supported previous literature. Overall analysis of data for the qualitative component supported quantitative data in most areas. Although both quantitative and qualitative data supported the relevance of principal leadership on teachers' intent, when teachers responded to open-ended questions relative to principal leadership some answers varied compared to the responses in the quantitative section on principal support. Additional qualitative data indicated three things that most influenced teachers to remain in the profession: student success, subject matter taught, and the art of teaching. When asked which factors contributed greatest to teachers leaving the profession, teachers responded with lack of administrative support, teacher workload, and student discipline. Additional self-reported factors that were bothersome to teachers were student discipline, as previously noted, excessive paperwork, and pressures of state-testing. Teacher responses are supportive of previous literature in the area of teacher retention. Based on the findings in this study, the researcher developed recommendations for policy, practice, and future studies. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: www.proquest.com/en-US/products/disserta…   [More]  Descriptors: High Stakes Tests, Teacher Persistence, Teacher Attitudes, Job Satisfaction

Singh, Parlo; Mçrtsin, Mariann; Glasswell, Kathryn (2015). Dilemmatic Spaces: High-Stakes Testing and the Possibilities of Collaborative Knowledge Work to Generate Learning Innovations, Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice. This paper examines collaborative researcher-practitioner knowledge work around assessment data in culturally diverse, low socio-economic school communities in Queensland, Australia. Specifically, the paper draws on interview accounts about the work of a cohort of school-based researchers who acted as mediators bridging knowledge flows between a local university and a cluster of schools. We draw on the concept of recontextualisation to explore the processes of knowledge mediation in dialogues around student assessment data to design instructional innovations. We argue that critical policy studies need to explore the complex ways in which neoliberal education policies are enacted in local sites. Moreover, we suggest that an analysis of collaborative knowledge work designed to improve student learning outcomes in low socio-economic school communities necessitates attention to the principles regulating knowledge flows across boundaries. In addition, it necessitates attention to the ways in which mediators navigate dilemmatic spaces, anxieties and affects/feelings in order to generate innovative learning designs in the current global context of high-stakes national testing and accountability regimes.   [More]  Descriptors: Foreign Countries, High Stakes Tests, Educational Researchers, Student Evaluation

Rapp, Dana (2002). National Board Certified Teachers in Ohio Give State Education Policy, Classroom Climate, and High-Stakes Testing a Grade of F, Phi Delta Kappan. Describes results of survey of Ohio certified-teacher attitudes toward state education policy, classroom climate, and high-stakes testing. Found a large majority of teachers expressed strong dissatisfaction with educational policy, its impact on classroom climate, and the use of high-stakes testing. (11 references) Descriptors: Classroom Environment, Educational Policy, Elementary Secondary Education, High Stakes Tests

Link, Holly K. (2016). Doing Well in School: Repertoires of Success at the End of Elementary School, ProQuest LLC. In spite of over a decade of U.S. school reform emphasizing test preparation and performance, students from minoritized backgrounds continue to underachieve on standardized testing. With an abundance of research on the achievement gap, we are now more than ever aware of this problem. But to avoid reproducing longstanding school inequities, testing practices and achievement measures need rethinking. This dissertation does this by investigating how, in a recently established Mexican immigrant community in Pennsylvania, children from Mexican immigrant and African American backgrounds negotiated the heavy emphasis on high-stakes testing in their final year of elementary school. Based on long-term, collaborative ethnographic research, my dissertation builds on scholarship in the linguistic anthropology of education to investigate how children communicated with each other and their teachers about doing well in school where what counted as success were scores of "advanced" or "proficient" on the annual State Standardized Assessment. The data in my dissertation revealed a number of negative consequences of the use of scripted, test-oriented curricula. For example, children who were consistently positioned as low performers began to develop oppositional stances towards schooling and to position themselves as choosing not to be smart. In addition, many children came equate doing well in school with simply passing the test, expressed increasing dislike of school-based reading and writing, and did what they had to do to "get by." However, when given the opportunity to engage in collaborative sense- and self-making, they were able to challenge the ways they were positioned according to their test performance and showed deep engagement in learning. I argue for closer attention to the effects of school based reform efforts and accountability measures at the elementary school level by drawing on children's underrepresented perspectives. Doing so will point the way to utilizing their communicative practices for increased school engagement and performance, as well as more equitable assessments of achievement. Without better understanding of these phenomena as children approach middle school, schools risks further reifying the schooling inequities reform efforts seek to remedy. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: www.proquest.com/en-US/products/disserta…   [More]  Descriptors: Success, Academic Achievement, Immigrants, Mexican Americans

Cala, William C. (2003). An Allegory on Educational Testing in New York State, Phi Delta Kappan. Draws parallel between 18th century British scientists unwillingness to recognize a non-scientist's discovery of how to determine longitude at sea with New York education leaders current unwillingness to consider alternatives to high-stakes testing. Descriptors: Allegory, Criticism, Elementary Secondary Education, High Stakes Tests

Ohanian, Susan (2003). Capitalism, Calculus, and Conscience, Phi Delta Kappan. Argues that American corporations support the education standards and high-stakes testing movement to serve their global economic interests. Calls for strong teacher opposition. (Contains 34 references.) Descriptors: Court Litigation, Educational Change, Elementary Secondary Education, High Stakes Tests

Au, Wayne W. (2009). High-Stakes Testing and Discursive Control: The Triple Bind for Non-Standard Student Identities, Multicultural Perspectives. The effects of high-stakes, standardized testing on the curriculum are discouraging the teaching of multicultural, anti-racist content. Test-influenced educational environments contribute to the reproduction of racial and cultural inequality in education. Using the lens of sociolinguistics, the author asserts that high-stakes, standardized tests ultimately exert a level of control over identities considered legitimate or illegitimate in classroom discourse.   [More]  Descriptors: Sociolinguistics, Testing, Standardized Tests, High Stakes Tests

Scot, Tammy Pandina; Callahan, Carolyn M.; Urquhart, Jill (2009). Paint-by-Number Teachers and Cookie-Cutter Students: The Unintended Effects of High-Stakes Testing on the Education of Gifted Students, Roeper Review. During the year 2007, national education policy emphasizes the evaluation of students, teachers and schools based on students' test scores. While education professionals at all levels are charged with raising test scores, they are also expected to keep pace with current educational practices. The research presented in this article examines the results of a professional development program aimed at providing teachers with the most current knowledge of gifted learners and how to teach them. What is the influence of national accountability and high-stakes testing policies on professional development reform efforts? Can teachers enact best-practice teaching and learning strategies honoring the needs of gifted students within the reform movement directives?   [More]  Descriptors: Student Teaching, Academically Gifted, Testing, Standardized Tests

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