“I Like to Read, but I Know I’m Not Good at It”: Children’s Perspectives on High‐Stakes Testing in a High‐Poverty School

Abstract

A significant body of research articulates concerns about the current emphasis on high‐stakes testing as the primary lever of education reform in the United States. However, relatively little research has focused on how children make sense of the assessment policies in which they are centrally located. In this article, we share analyses of interview data from 33 third graders in an urban elementary school collected as part of a larger qualitative study of children's experiences in literacy in high‐poverty classroom. Our analysis of assessment‐focused interviews focused on two research questions related to children's perspectives on high‐stakes testing: What patterns arise in children's talk about high‐stakes testing? What does children's talk about high‐stakes testing reveal about their perceptions of the role of testing in their school experiences and how they are positioned within the system of accountability they encounter in school? Drawing on tools associated with inductive approaches to learning from qualitative data as well as critical discourse analysis, we discuss three issues that arose in children's responses: language related to the adults invested in their achievement; their sense of the stakes involved in testing; and links between their feelings about test taking, perceptions of scores, and assumptions of competence. We argue that children's perspectives on their experiences with high‐stakes testing provide crucial insights into how children construct relationships to schooling, relationships that have consequences for their continued engagement in school.

Critical Discourse Analysis in Literacy Education: A Review of the Literature

“…The authors conclude with implications for teachers, noting, “this model also provides a strategy for teachers to assess the long‐term effects of peer‐group interaction on students” (p. 138). Other studies with traditional calls for future research and minimal calls for social action include Agiro (), Clarke (), and Dutro and Selland ().…”

Revealing Writing, Concealing Writers

“…Indeed, much research over the past two decades suggests that the emphasis on testing constrains curriculum as well as teachers' attempts to provide students with rich learning experiences focused on higher-order inquiry (e.g., Abrams, Pedulla, & Madaus, 2003;Barksdale-Ladd & Thomas, 2000;Berliner, 2007;Darling-Hammond & Rustique-Forrester, 2005;Lomax, West, Harmon, Viator, & Madaus, 1995;Mathison & Freeman, 2003;McCarthey, 2008;Noddings, 2002;Zacher, 2011). Researchers have also found that some students respond with anxiety, faulty assumptions, frustration, or decreased motivation to the testing process and awareness of their scores (as these studies also find, certainly other students seem to take the process in stride or even enjoy it, particularly those who score well; e.g., Dutro & Selland, 2012;Enciso, 2001;Gershman, 2004;Jones et al, 1999;Perna & Thomas, 2009;Roderick & Engel, 2001;Wheelock, Bebell, & Haney, 2000). Indeed, post-NCLB reviews of the literature on high-stakes testing conclude that there is not convincing evidence that such testing has its intended effect of increasing student learning and may have unintended, significant negative consequences for students, especially those in high-poverty schools (Laitsch, 2006;Nichols, 2007).…”

High-stakes testing policy and English language teaching: Voices of the leftovers

“…Other studies reveal that high-stakes testing causes teachers to quit collaborative learning practice, integrated learning and inquiry-driven learning for the sake of isolated and split test practice in basic skills (Au, 2009;Barksdale-Ladd & Thomas, 2000;Dutro & Selland, 2012). It also causes students to be anxious, students' parents to be worried about their children's future, schools to bear strains to keep their reputation afloat, and induce dishonesty and cheating (Coniam & Falvey, 2018;Harris et al, 2011;Kempf, 2016;Thomas, 2005).…”