Standardized Testing

Annotated Bibliography
By: Adriana Mitreska

March 27, 2012

Question: Is standardized testing beneficial to students or does it affect their learning strategies or is it just a way of saying how much you know or don’t know? Does it relate with competition between schools and students to see whose better?

Educational Performance                   1

Pasi, S. (2010). Rethinking accountability in a knowledge society. Journal of Educational Change;, 11(1), 45-61. doi: 10.1007/s10833-008-9098-2

In this article, the author Pasi Sahlberg, shares his knowledge about how competition between schools and test-based accountability hold schools responsible for knowledge standards that have become a solution in education change efforts to better improve the performance of educational systems around the world. Within this article, there are three major arguments that the author had described for us and they are: test-based accountability policies improve the quality and efficiency of public education. The second argument is that current practice of finding out educational performance by using standardized knowledge tests as the means of accountability is not required for much educational improvement. The last one is that there is evidence that increased high-stakes testing is not allowing students to learn theoretically, and engaging in creative action and understanding innovation, which are all important elements of present day schooling in a knowledge based society. This article basically states that education policies should be aimed at promoting more intelligent forms of accountability to meet external demands and to support and encourage cooperation rather than competition with students, teachers, and schools. The author has made some good points because standardized testing should not have competition between people and other school boards. This source goes along with: “If it relates with competition between students and other school boards, who will out win them”.

Curriculum standards and students ability to retain information in the long run                2

Merrow, J. (2007). Up against the wall. Education Week, 26(41), 40-41. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=6&hid=8&sid=a72bea6d-5988-441a-bf7a-70ccf6e527e0@sessionmgr15&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ==

            John Merrow takes a look at growth models for education and schools. In this article, he argues that schools need a good, strong curriculum with performance measures to be beneficial and to promote long term advances in student education instead of short term increases in test scores. He thinks that standardized testing and the curriculum are not to be associated with one another. With the author’s logic and evidence, I do agree with his statements/arguments because it would be beneficial to students if they could retain information for a long period of time. His article is relevant to my question because, it relates with students learning strategies.

Educational Diagnostic Tools for Students               3

Duffey, J., & Fedner, M. (1978). Educational diagnosis with instructional use. Exceptional Children, 44(4), 246-251. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=16&hid=8&sid=a72bea6d-5988-441a-bf7a-70ccf6e527e0@sessionmgr15&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ==

This article was made up by two authors, and they are: James B. Duffey, and Mark L. Fedner. They have found out that a large population of students were not able benefit or gain anything from this kind of testing. Some have used norm as referenced testing, problem solving tool for instructional purposes. But, we need a different approach for de-emphasizing standardized norm referenced testing in favor of something that is instructionally diagnostic. Successful achievement is within the educator’s reach. Correct educational diagnosis and instruction based is good for a teacher, student, and parent.  We should have accurate findings and instructions in order to achieve the level of success so, I do agree with the author on that. This resource relates to my question on how people have different ways of learning and on how much we do know about certain things.

Increase in Dropout Rates from Grade Promotion                 4

Allensworth, E. (2005). Dropout rates after high-stakes testing in elementary school: A study of the contradictory effects of chicago's efforts to end social promotion. Educational Evaluation & Policy Analysis, 27(4), 341-364. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=8&hid=8&sid=a72bea6d-5988-441a-bf7a-70ccf6e527e0@sessionmgr15&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ==

With Elaine Allensworth’s article, I found out that there were grade promotions to increase the performance on standardized test. These kinds of policies might increase dropout rates in the future. The author used data from Chicago to examine dropout rates after an eight-grade promotion standard. The results were that the policy did cause some students to dropout, but the traditional teacher was not related to the timing of student dropout rates. This article argues about the amount of dropout rates from grade promotion. When I read about her findings, I do not agree with these kinds of policies because we should not be having dropout rates in schools. The source is relevant to my topic because it is answering my question about “is standardized testing beneficial to students or not” and the information in this article is defiantly not beneficial for the schools and for the students especially, because they won’t have an education if they dropout. 

Educational Measurements                  5

Williams, H. (1933). Some results of the testing movement. Education, 53(7), 417-420. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=7&hid=8&sid=a72bea6d-5988-441a-bf7a-70ccf6e527e0@sessionmgr15&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ==

In J. Harold Williams article, it gives us an insight on how the importance of educational measurements improves teaching methods and even school organization methods. Schools can run tests for the promotion of students. Some improvements made in the tests are based on evidence taken from test results. The curriculum can also be changed from test results. Teaching aims and objectives can be looked at more effectively by doing tests. Also, with the use of educational measurements for checking the results of curriculum experiments can be helpful in establishing important changes in the curriculum. I somewhat agree with the information that is provided by this particular author because we should sometimes try to add or take out things from the curriculum or in tests that might be difficult or beneficial for students. It relates to my question because this information can sometimes be good for students and in their learning strategies because if there is a change in the curriculum, then they sometimes might like it or not.