A study found that students who had brief retrieval tests before a high-stakes test remembered 60 percent of material, while those who only studied remembered 40 percent.
Additionally, in a study , eighth graders who took a practice test halfway through the year remembered 10 percent more facts on a U. Short, low-stakes tests also help teachers gauge how well students understand the material and what they need to reteach. Summative tests, such as a final exam that measures how much was learned but offers no opportunities for a student to improve, have been found to be less effective.
Teachers should tread carefully with test design, however, as not all tests help students retain information. Though multiple choice tests are relatively easy to create, they can contain misleading answer choices—that are either ambiguous or vague—or offer the infamous all-, some-, or none-of-the-above choices, which tend to encourage guessing.
While educators often rely on open-ended questions, such short-answer questions, because they seem to offer a genuine window into student thinking, research shows that there is no difference between multiple choice and constructed response questions in terms of demonstrating what students have learned. All students do not do equally well on multiple choice tests, however.
Researchers hypothesize that one explanation for the gender difference on high-stakes tests is risk aversion, meaning girls tend to guess less. Giving more time for fewer, more complex or richer testing questions can also increase performance, in part because it reduces anxiety. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act in particular opens the way for new and increased uses of norm-referenced tests to evaluate programs. In the 21st century, however, the SAT and the ACT are just part of a gauntlet of tests students may face before reaching college.
The marathon four-hour Advanced Placement examinations — which some universities accept for students who want to opt out of introductory college-level classes — remain popular. Nearly , took the U. No Child Left Behind education reform is its expansion of state-mandated standardized testing as means of assessing school performance. Now most students are tested each year of grade school as well.
Testing of students in the United States is now years old. Every Student Succeeds Act is passed. ESSA takes steps to reduce standardized testing, and decouples testing and high-stakes decision making.
Statewide assessments are still required for grades and once in high school. Are you an affiliate? Jump to updates, opportunities, and resources for NEA state and local affiliates.
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International-comparison tests are administered periodically to representative samples of students in a number of countries, including the United States, for the purposes of monitoring achievement trends in individual countries and comparing educational performance across countries.
Trained professionals, such as school psychologists, typically administer the tests, which may require students to perform a series of tasks or solve a set of problems. Psychological tests are often used to identify students with learning disabilities or other special needs that would qualify them for specialized services. Reform Following a wide variety of state and federal laws, policies, and regulations aimed at improving school and teacher performance, standardized achievement tests have become an increasingly prominent part of public schooling in the United States.
When focused on reforming schools and improving student achievement, standardized tests are used in a few primary ways: To hold schools and educators accountable for educational results and student performance. In this case, test scores are used as a measure of effectiveness, and low scores may trigger a variety of consequences for schools and teachers. For a more detailed discussion see high-stakes test.
To evaluate whether students have learned what they are expected to learn , such as whether they have met state learning standards.
In this case, test scores are seen as a representative indicator of student achievement. To identify gaps in student learning and academic progress. In this case, test scores may be used, along with other information about students, to diagnose learning needs so that educators can provide appropriate services, instruction, or academic support. To identify achievement gaps among different student groups , including students of color, students who are not proficient in English, students from low-income households, and students with physical or learning disabilities.
In this case, exposing and highlighting achievement gaps may be seen as an essential first step in the effort to educate all students well, which can lead to greater public awareness and changes in educational policies and programs. To determine whether educational policies are working as intended.
In this case, elected officials and education policy makers may rely on standardized-test results to determine whether their laws and policies are working or not, or to compare educational performance from school to school or state to state.
They may also use the results to persuade the public and other elected officials that their policies are in the best interest of children and society. Debate While debates about standardized testing are wide-ranging, nuanced, and sometimes emotionally charged, many debates tend to be focused on the ways in which the tests are used, and whether they present reliable or unreliable evaluations of student learning, rather than on whether standardized testing is inherently good or bad although there is certainly debate on this topic as well.
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