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6. A test will influence how learners learn
7. A test will influence the rate and sequence of teaching; and
8. A test will influence the rate and sequence of learning
9. A test will influence the degree and depth of teaching
10. A test will influence the degree and depth of learning
11. A test will influence attitude towards the content, method, etc. of teaching
and learning 12.
Tests that have important consequences will have washback; conversely, 13.
Tests that do not have important consequences will have no washback 14.
Tests will have washback on all learners and teachers 15.
Tests will have washback effects for some learners and some teachers, but not for others.
Wall 1996, following the above study, stresses the difficulties in finding explanation of how tests maintain influence on teaching. Alderson and Wall 1993
concludes that further research on washback is needed, and the research must specify the above washback hypothesis more.
2. Exploring the Research Phenomenon
This section consists of two parts, namely high-stakes testing and measurement-driven instruction.
a. Influences of High-stakes Testing
High-stakes testing refers to tests whose results are seen –rightly or
wrongly –by the students, administrators, parents, or the general public as the basis
upon which important decisions are made that immediately and directly affect the student Madaus, 1988. Cheng 2004 states high-stakes tests offer academic and
employment opportunities based on their results. They are usually public examination and standardized tests.
According to the Regulation of the Educational and Cultural Ministry number 3 year of 2013, article 2d, passing out the NE becomes one of the
requirement to graduate from secondary school. NE pure score itself is worth 40
23 that later will be combined with 60 from the school score to get the final decision
of graduation. Meanwhile, NE also functions as a basis selection towards the above level of education university. In addition, NE in past two years has administered
20 test packets NE Socialization for VHS from Educational, Youngster, and Sport of Yogyakarta, 2013, 2014. It means each person in the examination room has
different test packet. Thus, the subject of the study, the NE in a religion-based private Vocational High School in Yogyakarta, is such a high-stakes test.
Cheng 2004 finds quite a number of studies, both general in nature and in language education, illustrating that high-stakes standardized testing influences
teaching and learning. The major areas that have been studied are as follows:
School organization, practices, and achievement; accountability pressure
Teachers their attitudes and responses to standardized tests; teachers’
attention to testing in instructional planning and delivery; teaching content
s; time spent on test preparation; teachers’ sense of professional pride; and teachers’ general attitudes about the fairness and utility of
testing, etc.
Students their reactions, self-concepts, and self-assessment; and student learning outcomes
Parents
familiarity with the changes in evaluation of their children’s school progress, and their knowledge about attitudes towards standardized
testing.
Many studies have shown that high-stakes testing influences teaching and learning in the following ways. In 1990, Smith, Edelsky, Draper, Rottenberg, and
Cherland find that pressure to improve students’ test scores encourages some
teachers to neglect the material that the external test does not include. In the other study, Smith 1991b comments that teachers have negative feelings about
standardized testing and the narrowing down the curriculum. Cheng says that teachers alter their instructional materials to resemble the format of the standardized
tests as cites in Mathison, 1987. Teachers also tend to look at prior tests to make
24 sure that their instruction includes all or most of the test content, and plant to ensure
that they cover all test objectives Herman Golan, 1991. Furthermore, Madaus 1988 notes that teachers teach to the test when they believe important decisions
will be based on the test scores. In conclusion, it appears that the grater the consequences brought by the test, the more likely it will be to have an impact on
teaching Alderson Wall, 1993.
b. Measurement-driven Instruction
Cheng says examinations as an encroaching power that is influencing education, blurring, distinctions between liberal and technical education, and
narrowing the range of learning through forcing students to prepare by studying with crammers and in cramming schools as cited in Lathan, 1877. Spolsky 1994
emphasizes that the encroaching power also permits any external body so-called a university or a government agency to exert control over the internal operations of
educational systems that are becoming increasingly complex. Popham 1987 says that MDI happens when a high-stakes standardized test
influences a teacher’s instructional program in order to prepare students for the test. He also outlines the traditional notion of MDI to illustrate the relationship between
instruction and assessment. He suggests that assessment directs teachers’ attention to the content of test items, acting as powerful “curricular magnets”. Furthermore,
he states that, in high-stakes situation, in which the results of standardizes tests trigger rewards, sanctions, or public scrutiny and loss of professional status,
teachers will be motivated to pursue the objectives that the test embodies. Noble and Smith 1994b points out that the current MDI reform in assessment aims to
25 build better test that will drive school towards more ambitious goals. It, in turn, will
drive a shift from behaviorism to cognitive-constructivism a shift to a curriculum and pedagogy run more towards thinking instead of rote memory and isolated skills
in teaching and learning beliefs. Cheng 2005 states that beliefs about testing reflect beliefs bout teaching
and learning. Whatever the objectives covers, tests can be written to measure them, can be administered to all, and re-administered as necessary to those who fail
Noble Smith, as cited in Cheng, 2004, p. 36. Cheng 2005 states that behaviorist psychology and pedagogy underlies the
traditional teaching and learning views from which views of traditional testing are derived. The view says that the desired performance of students is brought by
reinforcing successive approximations of correct performance. Students are presented with the academic tasks that are broken down into discrete units. Correct
performance bases rewards and progress through an ordered hierarchy of tasks and skills. Inadequate responses from high order skills instruction used will cause
repetition and repeating through the same material until it is mastered. In behaviorist model, students are considered passive recipient of knowledge.
Teachers ignore their intentions. On the contrary, the more recent psychological and pedagogical view,
labelled cognitive-constructivism, emphasize three interrelated dimensions.
1.
Learning is viewed as a process of construction
. In this view learning is not an act of recording discrete pieces of information, each piece independent of
the others and needing only to be repeated until it is mastered. It is a process of interpretation and construction of meaning Glaser Bassok, 1989.
Students are active participants in their learning, constructors of knowledge, not passive recipients of information and skills Piaget, 1973.
26
2.
Learning is knowledge-dependent
. It is not merely an act of receiving, but one of interpreting information through earlier learning. the role of prior
knowledge and experience is given special attention, for what a student learns on a given occasion is dependent on what has been already learned. It
is much easier for individuals to learn more areas of their expertise than it is for them to learn about other topics outside their experiences.
3.
Learning is situated in a context
Biggs, 1992, 1993, 1995; Resnick, 1989; Resnick Resnick, 1992. Knowledge is not independent of the context in
which it develops. Learning not only occurs in a context but also is social. Learning cannot be separated from the context in which it occurs Gergen,
1995. Cheng, 2005, p. 36-37
The perspective above proposes that effective instruction must connect with
how students think. Cheng 2005 says that the direct instruction from behaviorism does not match with how students learn. Cognitive-constructivist teaching and
learning view is likely to be more holistic, integrated, long-term, discovery-based, and social. Hence, Cheng further states that cognitive-constructivism see
performance assessment or testing as parallel to the above belief of how students learn and how they should be taught. Gipps 1994 states that teachers will use
previously acquired knowledge to measure learne rs’ ability in solving novel
problems or completing specifics tasks. In performance assessment, a qualified judge uses real life or simulated assessment exercises to elicit original responses
that are directly observed and rated. Furthermore, Cheng 2005 states that the proponents of performance
assessment believe that what is assess is what is taught. In the same sense of this belief, Resnick and Resnick 1992, p. 59 states that 1 you get what you assess,
2 you do not get what you do not assess, and 3 you should build assessments towards how you wants educators to teach. Cheng 2005 says that high-stakes
