Are standardised tests increasing student anxiety?
Andreas SCHLEICHER
Director for Education and Skills at the OECD. He initiated and oversees the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and created a global platform to innovate and transform education and skills policies
At this year’s meeting of?G20 Education Ministers in Pune, one of the questions that came up was the extent to which standardised testing would contribute to student anxiety.
Reducing the use of standardised tests carries obvious risks, as the existence of high-stakes exams in education has been clearly associated with stronger educational performance and, equally important, a more equitable distribution of educational outcomes. But is the price of greater student anxiety worth paying, in light of growing concerns among policy-makers and educators about the mental health and well-being of students, particularly in the context of recovery from the pandemic?
Interestingly, a look across countries does not show any relationship between the share of students in schools with mandatory standardised tests and the share of students who say they often worry that it will be difficult for them taking a test.
In Portugal, the global champion on test anxiety, little more than half of 15-year-olds are in schools with mandatory tests and just 8% of students are in schools that are required to test 3 times or more per year. In Sweden or the Chinese regions participating in?PISA, half of the 15-year-olds get tested 3 times or more each year, but students report much lower test anxiety. Finland, where over three quarters of students are participating in mandatory tests, reports the lowest level of test anxiety among the PISA countries.
In short, fostering student well-being and reducing anxiety are very important policy objectives. But cross-country comparisons do not suggest that lowering standards or reducing tests will contribute to that objective.
Education Lead EYEYAH! I The Unusual Network I Gif Fest
1 年This is interesting but can we take it for certain that students are able to self assess their level of anxiety in relation to exams?
International Education Designer of Transformative Teaching & Learning Systems
1 年Isn't the more relevant issue about the use and relevance of high-stakes chronological-age related testing? As there is no consistency or even coherence across a chronological-age cohort [for societal, economic, racial, cultural, familial, etc factors & reasons which all have sound research literature evidence bases] why should there be any anticipation, never mind confidence, that the results will have any reliability - or therefore use, beyond creating emotional/affective domain stress. If, those summative incidents [testing] did not occur and students were enabled [supported to develop as learners, rather than being labelled] by appropriately, planned and adjusted, differentiated, formative teaching, the 'data-farming' and subsequent 'ranking' [norm referencing] would not be an issue. Professor Bill Boyle
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1 年Interesting looking at the graph. Imagine seeing a similar graph to answer the question ‘Are high stake tests increasing student anxiety?’