The High-Stakes Testing Controversy

"Higher Standards" Can Prompt Poorer Education

Gathering information and providing feedback about performance in educational settings is extremely important for maintaining student and teacher motivation and for informing educational policy. Nonetheless, a disturbing trend in information gathering currently exists in the American educational system. Referred to as high-stakes testing and advocated as a means of motivating students and prompting improved average performance in schools, this trend will predictably lead to a variety of negative consequences in terms of the quality of students' learning and their psychological well-being.

The phrase high-stakes testing has varied uses, but the common denominator in such initiatives is that state or federal governments mandate standardized testing of all students and then administer sanctions based on the results. Students, teachers, and schools that do well are rewarded, and those that do badly are punished. For students, high-stakes test results can be the basis for promotion versus retention, and in some states failure on a single indicator can result in the denial of a high school diploma. Teachers in schools that perform well may get cash bonuses, while those in other schools are reprimanded or derided. For the schools, average student performance can result in increases versus cuts in school budgets, and in some cases poor student performance may result in school takeovers by the state.

High-stakes testing in its current incarnation has been publicly opposed by many professional organizations that have examined its impact, and the effects of high-stakes testing have been extensively summarized elsewhere. Sources for such information include: Kellaghan, Madaus, and Raczek's (1996) The Use of External Examinations to Improve Student Motivation; Swope and Miner's (2000) Failing Our Kids; Kohn's (2000) The Case Against Standardized Testing; and Whitford and Jones' (2000) Accountability, Assessment and Teacher Commitment. Relevant information is also available from Fairtest (www.fairtest.org). Rather than review that material herein, this essay presents the self-determination theory account of why these pressuring, reward- and punishment-oriented testing-based approaches to motivating learning will inevitably fail.

Self-Determination Theory's (SDT) Perspective on Testing. Specific SDT hypotheses that have been confirmed by research can be readily applied to a consideration of the impact of high-stakes policies (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Ryan & Deci, 2000; Ryan & La Guardia, 1999). In this brief statement we summarize the theoretical basis for those hypotheses as they relate to teacher and student motivation and review some of the evidence supporting the validity of these hypotheses. We end with a statement concerning more appropriate goals for educational reform and a different vision of how reform can more meaningfully be accomplished.

According to SDT the effects of assessments on human motivation depend on the psychological meaning, or functional significance, the assessments have for the individuals being tested. An important differentiation was first set forth as part of cognitive evaluation theory (Deci, 1975; Deci & Ryan, 1980, 1985), which is considered a sub-theory within SDT. The theory specifies that the functional significance of an external event such as a test can be informational, controlling, and amotivating.

Evaluations and assessments have informational significance when they provide effectance relevant feedback in a relatively supportive way. That is, when an assessment provides individuals with specific feedback that points the way to being more effective in meeting challenges or becoming more competent, and does so without pressuring or controlling the individuals, it tends to have a positive effect on self-motivation.

Evaluations and assessments have controlling significance, in contrast, when they are experienced by the individuals as pressure toward specified outcomes or when they represent a means by which the evaluators attempt to control the activity and effort of the individuals or units being tested. According to SDT, when evaluations have controlling significance they tend to produce compliance and rote memorization, but they ultimately undermine self-motivation, investment, and commitment in the domain of activity being evaluated.

Finally, evaluations and assessments have amotivating significance when they convey incompetence to the individuals. Evaluations which have standards that are not optimally challenging or that are perceived to be beyond the reach of the individuals being tested are experienced as amotivating: They undermine all motivation and lead to withdrawal of effort.

Both experimental and field studies have supported these predictions concerning the effects of feedback on subsequent motivation. Again, extensive reviews are available elsewhere but a few examples are worth detailing. In a laboratory demonstration, Ryan (1982) asked students to perform a cognitive-perceptual task. They were all given very positive feedback, but that feedback was constructed to have either controlling or informational salience. Controlling feedback suggested "you did very well at this, you lived up to my standards," whereas informational feedback simply conveyed the details of the participants' having done well. Students were then observed during a subsequent period where there was no pressure to engage in any particular activity so they were free to do what they liked. Students who received controlling feedback were significantly less likely to engage with the target task than were those who received informational feedback.

In an experiment conducted within an elementary school, Grolnick and Ryan (1987) had students engage in a reading comprehension tasks under three conditions. In one they were told they would not be tested at all. In another they were told they would be tested, but only to determine what kinds of ideas were learned, so there were no consequences for failure or success. In a third condition, students were told they would be tested and graded and that the grade would be delivered to their classroom teacher. That second condition was considered informational, the third a controlling condition. Results showed that controlling evaluations promoted short term, rote memory, but also produced a far lower level of conceptual learning and knowledge integration than did the other two non-controlling conditions.

Evidence from these and related studies indicates that when tests and evaluations are used in controlling and amotivating ways they have clearly negative effects on students' interest, motivation, and engagement in school. Studies of actual classrooms added to these findings by showing that when teachers were oriented toward being controlling and amotivating in the way they generally relate to students, thus using evaluations and rewards in ways that are experienced by students as controlling or amotivating, the students became less motivated and involved in school, relative to when teachers were more informationally oriented in the ways they related to students and used evaluations (Deci, Schwartz, Sheinman, & Ryan, 1981).

Performance Standards Affect Teachers. The findings that when teachers are less informational, thus being more controlling and amotivating, the students are less motivated and less engaged in school raised the interesting issue of what factors might lead teachers to be less informational. An experiment performed by Deci, Spiegel, Ryan, Koestner, and Kauffman (1982) addressed this question. Participants simulated teachers with the task of helping students learn to be better problem solvers. The teachers all had the same set of problems to work with; they were given time to become familiar with the problems; and they were given both the problem solutions and a list of hints that they could use in their teaching. The participants were then placed in one of two experimental conditions, with the only difference being that the participants in one group were explicitly told that it was their job to make sure their students performed "up to high standards." The results showed that the participants who were explicitly pressured to have their students achieve high standard used less effective teaching methods--they were more controlling and less supportive of students' experimentation. Specifically, teachers in the performance standards condition engaged in a more "teacher-centered" approach to teaching--they did more lecturing, criticizing, and directing--all techniques that have been shown to have a negative impact on students interest in learning and their willingness to undertake greater academic challenges. In fact, in most cases teachers in the performance-standards condition simply gave the students the problem solutions and had the students enact the solutions rather than allowing them to experiment and try to find their own solutions. Flink, Boggiano, and Barrett (1990) did a follow up of this in a newly introduced school-based curriculum for elementary students. Teachers pressed toward higher standards were shown to be more likely to engage in controlling and instructing behaviors in their classrooms and that actually yielded poorer performance on objective test-score outcomes. This is consistent with a wide body of literature linking evaluative pressure with poorer performance in schools (Kohn, 1996; Ryan & Stiller, 1991).

Creating a test-driven evaluative focus leads teachers and students to be more ego-involved in the students' learning causing greater evaluation apprehension for all. This in turn leads many students, particularly the less confident ones, to withdraw effort from school in order to reduce the diagnosticity of tests and thus protect their self-esteem (Thorkildsen & Nicholls, 1991). Additionally, even for students who try to do well, the evaluatively based motivation tends to be associated with more superficial learning and to foster less of the deep processing that is essential for long-term knowledge growth and retention (Golan & Graham, 1990; Grolnick & Ryan, 1987). Beyond this, the evidence suggests that focusing parents' concerns on performance outcomes will lead them, like teachers, to use pressuring motivational strategies that will backfire, leading to lower achievement over the long term (Ginsburg & Bronstein, 1993; Grolnick & Ryan, 1989). In short, pressure to achieve usually translates into lower quality teaching and less effective motivational practices, unwittingly undermining high-quality performance as well as the interest and task-involvement that facilitate it.

It should also be mentioned that use of evaluative standards that are not optimally challenging (i.e., that have amotivational significance) undermines motivation altogether. A large body of literature shows that pressures toward outcomes that students do not perceive to be within reach lead to effort withdrawal, helplessness, and lowered self-confidence and self-esteem (Vallerand & Reid, 1984; Deci & Ryan, 1985). The evidence is clear--if the bar appears to be too high, most humans will experience futility and withdraw their effort. People are simply not motivated by the prospect of failure.

Applications to High-Stakes Testing. Many states have instituted high-stakes tests with the explicit aim of motivating children and school districts to improve performance. However, although optimal challenges and informational feedback do facilitate motivation and achievement, most of the high-stakes reform efforts that are being implemented (a) are excessively controlling in their motivational approach, and (b) provide no meaningful effectance relevant feedback to those taking the tests. The talk is of new and tougher standards and of using the contingent administration of rewards and punishments, based on test results, to ensure the standards are met. All schools, regardless of their mission or constituency, are compared and graded on standardized exams that are often poorly constructed and nonvalidated. Single-performance test results are used to classify children and are summarized into grades for the schools. Not surprisingly, staff members in the schools tend to pressure the students in the very ways that have been found to be counterproductive.

It is truly amazing that most of the state exams have little established reliability for individual children and, in most cases, have no external validity, Certainly, this fact suggests a need for greater scrutiny. For example, improvement on the Texas State Exams, often referred to as the "Texas Miracle," appears to have been more of a "Texas Mirage." Studies by the RAND Corporation, an independent and nonpartisan think tank, have failed to show that improvements on these exams generalize to improvements on any outside indicators of learning or skill acquisition, thus suggesting that the improvements are specific to these exams. Further, during the so-called period of improvement, school dropouts, particularly among poor and minority students, substantially increased, suggesting that part of the average improvement may have been caused by forcing the poorer performing students out of the schools. From an SDT perspective, these are predictable outcomes. The controlling nature of these high-stakes exams led teachers to teach to the test, which accounts for some of the improvements over baseline assessments. But the approach also leads to (a) less creative and personalized teaching; (b) less deep learning that would generalize to other assessments; and (c) amotivation among students with lower abilities and fewer supports. It is further disturbing that, in no state that we know of, including Texas, have exam results been used to support learning or to improve instruction at the level of individual students and teachers. Instead, feedback is delayed, is non-specific, and consists only of labels and classifications that are wholly lacking in meaningful information.

The Regents Board of New York has instituted so-called reforms similar to those in Texas, with initial results that are disastrous, despite reported score improvements. Exams were initially sprung on schools with little time for preparation, thus insuring a low baseline passage rate. Newspapers published headlines such as "Students stumble on math exams," and "Fourth Graders fail at reading standards," scaring the public and suggesting a need for strong pressure. The state then provided schools with (a) specific exam preparation materials, including workbooks specifying how to achieve high scores; (b) salient promises of rewards and threats of punishments at the level of schools; and (c) announcements that, on the basis only of these test results, schools would be publicly graded. The predictable result that are occurring include (a) score improvements; (b) the driving out of alternative, enrichment-oriented, or exam-irrelevant activities and programs, no matter how successful; and (c) escalating school dropout rates. Teachers report less enthusiasm and state that the exams have crowded out important parts of their curriculum.

Just as no one would logically expects that simply "weighing the pig will fatten it," no one could reasonably expect that simply testing students will improve their learning. Consequently, strong and salient controls have been added to the new tests to change behavior in the schools. These controls have indeed changed behavior, but the changes have, in most cases, been for the worse rather than the better. And all of the changes are completely fitting with the theoretical predictions of SDT. Specifically, the pressure created by high-stakes, test-based reforms has improved performance in some schools that had been slacking off, this pressure has also led teachers and administrators to engage in precisely the types of interventions that result in poor quality learning and classroom experiences in the rest of the schools. Top-down evaluative pressure has prompted teachers to be more controlling in their classroom activities, in turn fostering a more outcome-focused orientation in students, a focus that has been found to promote impoverished learning, higher dropout rates, and greater alienation within schools. Unfortunately, these effects merely compound the problems associated with the fact that many students were already experiencing schools as pressured, irrelevant, and frustrating.

To summarize, high stakes, test-focused reforms, such as those in Texas and New York, tend to have the following effects: they constrain teachers' choices about curriculum coverage; they curtail teachers' ability to respond to students' interests for teaching purposes; and they limit teachers' opportunities to optimally pace coverage or to offer optimal challenges in classwork (Ryan & La Guardia, 1999). Moreover, test-driven coverage of material decreases teacher enthusiasm for teaching, and this too has an adverse effect on students' motivation (Urdan & Paris, 1994). Finally, and most importantly, test-focused teaching leads to numerous behaviors, such as teaching to the test and the use of evaluative feedback, which undermine the validity of the tests themselves and have a significant negative effect on students' motivation and performance in school.

High-Stakes Testing and Alternative Schools. It is clear from both educational and developmental research that students exhibit a diversity of learning styles and learning growth rates (Healy, 1990). Having a single criterion for all students fails to respect inherent diversity, forcing all schools to teach the same curriculum, because all students (and their teachers and schools) will be assessed with the same methods, at the same times. This centrally mandated, "one size fits all" focus is not only out of step with developmental research and theory, but, in a more immediate sense, it threatens to wreak havoc on successful alternative approaches to schooling that already exist, undoing what in some cases took years of dedicated work to build.

For example, in New York State, test-focused reforms have constrained vocational schools, taking resources away from hands-on, job-relevant activities. As well, alternative schools, even those that have established highly successful track records, will see their creative approaches atrophy. As cases in point, New York City's Urban Academy and Central Park East Schools, and Rochester's School Without Walls are alternative schools that use "student centered," depth-rather-than-breadth oriented curricula, combined with portfolio- and demonstration-based assessments. Such schools claim, rightfully, that their approach is antithetical to the high-stakes regime, because if these schools must compete on the standard exams, they are forced to focus on the broader, shallower curriculum upon which test scores are based. These schools, which have had extraordinary success in their graduation and college-entrance rates within neighborhoods that have traditionally had extremely high dropout rates, are being seriously damaged by the reforms and will only get worse if the mandated high-stakes testing continues. The very concept of school choice itself is being damaged, as all schools are being uniformly molded into Test Preparation Academies. Thus, although the new exams may be appropriate and optimal for some schools, particularly if the rewards and punishments were not attached, both the mandated wide-scale adoption of these tests and their use to publicly grade local schools need serious rethinking.

Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about this whole movement is that politicians have stepped in to usurp control from educators, as if the politicians know better than professional educators what is needed in our schools. Is reform needed in America's schools? Most certainly. Teachers know that; educational administrators know that; parents know that. Are politicians being seriously responsive to educators and educational experts who know best what is necessary for meaningful reform? Clearly not. In fact, the major professional organization of educators and educational researchers, the American Educational Research Association, has stated clearly that high-stakes approaches to educational reform impair rather than facilitate student learning, yet this seems to have no effect of the political agenda.

What things are known about students and teachers that would help guide meaningful educational reform? We sketch out just a few.

Some Important Elements for School Reform. Meaningful reform begins by asking, "What do students need in order to learn more and be better adjusted?" and "What do teachers need in order to teach more effectively?" Research has highlighted three critical points that answer these questions and represent a starting point for educational reform efforts. First, students as well as teachers need to feel effective, they need to be supported in their attempts to develop greater competencies rather than being evaluated and demeaned when they try. Second, students as well as teachers need to feel related to others, they need to feel recognized and appreciated as part of a learning community where they feel a sense of belongingness and relatedness. Third, students as well as teachers need to feel a sense of ownership over their learning and teaching, they need to feel like what deCharms (1975) referred to as origins of their learning and teaching efforts rather than pawns to external forces that are demanding, pressuring, and evaluating. Considerable research (e.g., Deci & Ryan, 2000) has shown that when students and teachers are able to satisfy these psychological needs for competence, relatedness, and autonomy while engaging in learning and instructional activities, they are not only more effective at those activities but they are also psychologically healthier.

Studies of school reform confirm that what actually helps students become more motivated and achieve higher standards is facilitating their interest in learning, their active engagement in the classroom, and their sense of belonging in a community of learners (see, e.g., Ryan & La Guardia, 1999). Students tend to exert more effort and excel academically when teachers support their sense of choice, provide optimal challenges, spontaneously build on the students' interests and concerns, and create an atmosphere relatively free from salient external evaluation and comparisons. When students feel more choice, more relevance, and more optimally challenged, they show greater inner motivation to learn, which in turn is associated with higher achievement test scores. This pattern of results has been identified in both narrative and meta-analytic reviews of the research literature (Kellaghan et al., 1996; Utman, 1997).

Many interesting alternative schools such as those mentioned above have recognized the importance of these basic human need and have successfully structured their classrooms and schools to allow greater satisfaction of students' and teachers' basic psychological needs. Much can be learned about school reform from looking at the successes of these schools, which need to be supported rather than forced to fit a mold. Various district-wide reform efforts, such as those of the Institute for Research and Reform in Education (irre.org), have also demonstrated extraordinary successes by using critical reform features that are responsive to the basic needs of students and teachers. For badly needed school improvements to work successfully, providing important advantage for our nation's young people and for our nation itself, we must move thoughtfully forward recognizing that for children and adults to grow and develop in healthy and effective ways, the institutions where they spend their time must function in ways that provide them opportunities to satisfy their basic needs to feel competent, related, and autonomous. In this way, our students and schools will be able to flourish.

Many politicians have expressed concerns about the schools that are doing poorly, the "slacker schools" so to speak. The real challenge we face is to step up to the problem of those schools without sacrificing the many students who are doing well.

References

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Deci, E. L. (1975). Intrinsic motivation. New York: Plenum.

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1980). The empirical exploration of intrinsic motivational processes. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 13, pp. 39-80). New York: Academic Press.

Deci, E.L. & Ryan, R.M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York: Plenum.

Deci, E.L. & Ryan, R.M. (2000). The "what" and the "why" of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11, 227-268.
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Deci, E. L., Schwartz, A. J., Sheinman, L., & Ryan, R. M. (1981). An instrument to assess adults' orientations toward control versus autonomy with children: Reflections on intrinsic motivation and perceived competence. Journal of Educational Psychology, 73, 642- 650.
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Deci, E. L., Spiegel, N. H., Ryan, R. M., Koestner, R., & Kauffman, M. (1982). The effects of performance standards on teaching styles: The behavior of controlling teachers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 74, 852-859.

Flink, C., Boggiano, A. K., & Barrett, M. (1990). Controlling teaching strategies: Undermining children's self-determination and performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 916-924.

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Golan, S., & Graham, S. (1990). The impact of ego and task-involvement on levels of processing. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Boston, MA.

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Grolnick, W. S., & Ryan, R. M. (1989). Parent styles associated with children's self-regulation and competence in school. Journal of Educational Psychology, 81, 143-154.
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Healy , J. M. (1990). Endangered minds. New York: Touchstone.

Kellaghan, T., Madaus, G. F., & Raczek, A. (1996). The use of external examinations to improve student motivation. Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.

Kohn, A. (1996). Beyond discipline: From compliance to community. VA:Association for Curriculum and Development.

Kohn, A. (2000). The case against standardized testing: Raising the scores, ruining the schools. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

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Ryan, R.M. & Deci, E.L. (2000) Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development and well-being. American Psychologist, 55, 68-78.
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Ryan, R. M., & La Guardia, J. G. (1999). Achievement motivation within a pressured society: Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations to learn and the politics of school reform. In T. Urdan (Ed.) Advances in motivation and achievement. (Vol 11, pp. 45-85). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

Ryan, R. M., & Stiller, J. (1991). The social contexts of internalization: Parent and teacher influences on autonomy, motivation and learning. In P. R. Pintrich & M. L. Maehr (Eds.), Advances in motivation and achievement: Vol. 7. Goals and self-regulatory processes (pp. 115-149). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

Swope, K., & Miner, B. (Eds.). (2000). Failing our kids: Why the testing craze won't fix our schools. Milwaukee, WI: Rethinking Schools, Ltd.

Thorkildsen, T. A., & Nicholls, J. G. (1991). Students' critiques as motivation. Educational Psychologist, 26, 347-368.

Urdan, T. C., & Paris, S. G. (1994). Teachers' perceptions of standardized achievement tests. Educational Policy, 8, 137-156.

Utman, C. H. (1997). Performance effects of motivational state: A meta-analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 1, 170-182.

Vallerand, R. J. & Reid, G. (1984). On the causal effects of perceived competence on intrinsic motivation: A test of cognitive evaluation theory. Journal of Sport Psychology, 6, 94-102.

Whitford, B. L., & Jones, K. (Eds.). (2000). Accountability, assessment, and teacher commitment: Lessons from Kentucky's reform efforts. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

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