A close examination of the traditional practice of testing reveals an often messy picture of unintended and unwanted side effects. It is critical to recognize the limitations of tests so we can minimize the collateral damage that results when we use these imperfect tools. With care, we can even turn them to our students’ advantage and transform testing into a useful and refined tool.
Testing alone does not measure learning.
As described above, tests measure how many questions a student can correctly answer at that moment. It says nothing about how much will be retained — that is, truly learned. There is a profound difference between knowledge that resides in working memory, which is active and retrievable for a matter of days or weeks, and knowledge that has been transferred to long-term memory and therefore is integrated into what the student really knows.
Testing does not cause learning.
Cows don’t gain weight faster when you weigh them more frequently or more accurately. A child’s fever won’t be affected if you take his temperature, regardless of how often you do it or how precise your thermometer is. Once you have measured a student’s knowledge with a test, you are still left with the question, “Now what?”
In fact, test-taking can actually detract from a student’s understanding of the material. The the anxious anticipation of an upcoming test can undermine the motivation to learn. When a student crams for a test, he is jamming as much content as possible into his working memory in the hopes that he will be able to retrieve it during the test. He is not concerned about whether he will still know it a year from now. The learning process has been displaced by something much less meaningful.
Testing distorts student motivation.
The more a student values the score on a test, the more the purpose of working becomes getting answers right. The ability to take chances, make mistakes, and learn from them shrinks accordingly. Real intellectual growth requires that kind of risk-taking and stretching into the unknown. A person who is risk-averse is not likely to be creative in the learning process. Tests encourage students to be risk-averse.
Poor test grades generate shame or anger.
Doing badly on on a test is a blow to a student’s self-esteem and self-confidence. When a student gets low grades on test after test, it is difficult not to “take it personally” and react with emotions that are counterproductive to learning. When a student stuffs a test that he did badly on into his backpack because he doesn’t want anyone to see it, it is unlikely that he will learn from the mistakes that he made.
Poor test grades solidify the belief in fixed attributes.
When a student consistently gets low scores on tests, an extremely common response is to believe that this is a measure of his intelligence, and that there’s nothing that can be done about it. The tendency for the student is to see herself as stupid or not good at math. Once that fixed mindset is established, his expectation of success vanishes, along with his motivation. This is counterproductive to becoming an effective learner.
Test anxiety does real damage.
Many students find their test scores affected, sometimes dramatically, because they are panicking and not thinking clearly. Under these circumstances, the test cannot accurately show you how much that student knows. Test anxiety also has a broader negative impact on the student, because panic attacks, especially when they are chronic, can have lasting effects on a student’s personality and posture in the classroom. Given the number of classes a student is taking, these bouts of panic are probably happening fairly frequently. Test anxiety can dramatically affect how much the student enjoys school and the learning process.
Tests often measure the ability to function well under intense pressure, even panic. This is especially true when we haven’t allowed enough time for the students who are slowest to finish at their own pace. We must ask ourselves whether the skill of answering questions under pressure is one that we hold to be important and want our students to excel at.
Tests reinforce the teacher-dominated power structure in classrooms.
How many times have you had legalistic struggles over how many points a student got on a test? When that happens, you and the student are not on the same side. This has a corrosive effect on your ability to be a mentor and facilitator in the student’s self-directed learning. After all, you are the one writing and scoring the tests, and therefore you are the one who controls the grades.
