Do High-Stakes Assessments Improve Learning Essay

Do High-Stakes Assessments Improve Learning - Essay Example5), of which high-stakes assessment was deemed crucial in modify student achievement and learning. However, various studies have revealed contradictory results regarding its effect on students academic performance. Do High-Stakes Assessments Improve Learning? One, therefore, contends that high-stakes assessment does not improve the overall achievement and learning of students. Proponents of high-stakes assessment argue that when faced with large incentives and threatening punishments, administrators, teachers, and students, it is believed, will take schooling more seriously and work harder to obtain rewards and lift humiliating punishments (Nichols, Glass, & Berliner, 2005, p. 1). ... ssessments implemented in various educational institutions throughout the United States have apparently generated contradictory results (Nichols, Glass, & Berliner, 2005 Amrein & Berliner, 2002). The study conducted by Nichols, Glass, & Berli ner (2005) revealed that there is no convince turn up that the pressure associated with high-stakes testing leads to any important benefits for students achievement (p. iii). This finding was corroborated in the study made by Amrein & Berliner (2002) which disclosed that there is inadequate evidence to support the proposition that high-stakes tests and high school graduation exams increase student achievement. The data presented in this study suggest that after the implementation of high-stakes tests, nothing such(prenominal) happens (p. 57). A closer evaluation of the reasons why high stakes assessment do not seem to apparently improve learning since high-stakes assessment were inform to be closely linked to pressure that contributes to an apparent temporary or superficial increase in academic achievement ratings. As emphasized by Supovitz (2010), high-stakes testing does motivate educators, but responses are often superficial. In the best cases, high-stakes testing has focused instruction toward important and developmentally appropriate literacy and numeracy skillsbut at the expense of a narrower curricular experience for students and a steadier diet of test preparation activities in classrooms, particularly in low-performing schools, which are the targets of test-based accountability (par. 10). This fact was support by Nichols, Glass, & Berliner (2005) who indicated that high-stakes testing pressure might produce effects only at the simplest level of the school curriculum primary school arithmetic,