MeasurementDriven Instruction: Stress and lower success ratesMany students aresuffering from debilitating stress levels, caused by measurement driven instruction.This type of instruction creates higher stress levels in students and lower successrates after college.
Students stress levels increase because they are worriedabout flunking a class after just one test. Higher stress levels can cause illnessin students. Because of standardized testing when students are not giveninstruction they exhibit no creativity. Measurement driveninstruction can help students and teachers to determine what subjects they needto work on. “Year after year, standardized test results have exposedglaring racial biases in our education system. Teachers and schools are nolonger able to hide behind school averages in performance, and are now havingto answer for the low academic performance of students of color and low-incomestudents. Many parents are being told to boycott these tests when really weshould be looking more closely at the results.”(LatashaGandy) WhenStandardized tests are examined correctly administrators and teachers cangather information on what material they need to teach their students based offof deficient test scores in certain areas.
Every subject in school has multiplecourse standards that teachers are supposed to teach to their students. Thespecific course standards can be divided into sections of a standardized test,so that teachers can see what most students are having trouble with. Standardizedtesting is also useful because administrators in school systems can see when anentire class has low scores that teacher is not doing their job and needs to befired. (it may not be teachers fault, could be misunderstanding of students aswell.) However, measurement driven instruction creates higher stress levels instudents which can in turn lead to lower test scores that cannot be interpretedcorrectly by school systems. “Students,school psychologists say, are keenly aware of the high stakes attached to stateexams. They spend an inordinate amount of class time preparing for them, andknow that doing poorly could ultimately cause a school to close or a teacher tolose a job.” (Liza Frenette) Stress is a deadly cyclewhen it comes to standardized testing because when a student is stressed abouta test they tend to score lower which in turn will create additional stress andso the cycle continues until a student who is capable of achieving good grades,is flunking out of school.
“Students canfeel pressured by their inner drive to succeed, a quest for perfection or afear of failure, especially if they may be unfamiliar with the English languageor are not yet up to the reading or developmental level of the test in front ofthem.” (Liza Frenette) High stress levels like the ones LizaFrenette is referring to can cause students to be distracted in their learning environmentand learn less of the material on the test that determines how well a studentpreforms in school. Standardizedtesting Creates lower success in students, because teachers and school boardsrely on testing as the only information on how a student learns and therefore cannotprovide the correct learning environment for a student who is struggling orsuffering from stress. “A second reason that standardized achievementtests should not be used to evaluate educational quality arises directly fromthe requirement that these tests permit meaningful comparisons among studentsfrom only a small collection of items.” (James W. Popham) Standardizedtesting is not being used with other measures of success in schools across America,so overall students are not getting the proper representation of their knowledgein their grades. Students are not being pushed to be successful in theirstudies if teachers do not know what students are struggling with.
If Studentsdo not have a supportive teacher helping to guide them toward academic successthen students will not succeed on standardized tests. “Asteachers interact with their students while providing instruction, they play avery important role in establishing a safe, supportive learning environment.Positive teacher–student relationships can have long-lasting effects onthe social, emotional, and academic development of youth. Teachers can improvethe school’s environment by actively seeking to prevent physical violence,bullying, and emotional abuse in their classrooms and throughout theschool by building relationships with students and staff.”(national center on safe supportive learning environments) If a student is not provided with a supportiveteacher, then there will be many factors in that students life to distract fromtheir studies which in turn will cause them to score lower on standardized tests,therefore making standardized testing statistics more unreliable as teacherscan not prevent every single distraction. Measurement driven instruction is not a reliable sourceof information for teachers and administration because most standardized testsare culturally and economically biased. ” WorksCited Ascd, and James W.
Popham. “Why StandardizedTests Don’t Measure Educational quality.” Educational Leadership: UsingStandards and Assessments: Why Standardized Tests Don’t Measure EducationalQuality. March ?, 1999. Accessed January 20, 2018.http://www.
ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar99/vol56/num06/Why-Standardized-Tests-Don%27t-Measure-Educational-Quality.aspx. Frenette, Liza. “Test stress and academic anxiety.”Nysut. March 6, 2015.
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org/news/nysut-united/issues/2015/march-2015/test-stress-and-academic-anxiety. Gandy, Latasha . “Don’t Believe the Hype:Standardized Tests Are Good for Children, Families and Schools.” EducationPost, EducationPost, 11 Jan. 2016,educationpost.org/dont-believe-the-hype-standardized-tests-are-good-for-children-families-and-schools/. Gilmore, Harvey. “Standardized Testing, Learning,and Meritocracy: A Reply to Professor Dan Subotnik.
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edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lgh&AN=115829148&site=eds-live&scope=site.Additional Information:Persistent link to this record (Permalink): http://proxygsu-sful.galileo.usg.
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aspx?direct=true&db=lgh&AN=115829148&site=eds-live&scope=site NCSSLE. “Teachers.” National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments, NCSSLE, 29 Jan.2018,safesupportivelearning.ed.
gov/training-technical-assistance/roles/teachers. Pinto, Laura Elizabeth. “Tensions and Fissures: ThePolitics of Standardized Testing and Accountability in Ontario,1995–2015.” Curriculum Journal, vol. 27, no.
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