Test anxiety isn’t a health problem, it’s a policy problem
For most students, taking tests is just another part of their academic lives. But for some, taking a test can spark anxiety so intense that the student freezes up and forgets everything they studied. When test anxiety affects as many as 40% of students, you have to wonder — how reliable are test results, anyway?
The implications of performance anxiety are even more serious when you’re talking about high-stakes standardized testing, or any other time when a result that is all but arbitrary ends up drastically affecting students’ academic careers and lives as a whole.
Should a one-size-all test really be the major tool we use for determining a person’s interest, capability, and willingness when it comes to education?
Despite the prevalence of high-stakes testing, there are plenty of people who do disagree with it, and number of groups speaking out against it or actively working to limit or get rid of it entirely.
Educators, administrators, and innovators fight back
In some states, teachers’ unions have lobbied against these kinds of tests — not only because of the effect they have on children, but also because the results can and do reflect unfairly on the teachers themselves.
The oldest civil rights group in America, the NAACP, has also taken a firm stance against the use of standardized testing, specifically where test results are used to determine a student’s ability to graduate high school.
A brief issued by the NAACP states the following:
“Using a single standardized test as the sole determinant for promotion, tracking, ability grouping and graduation is not fair and does not foster equality or opportunity for students regardless of race, income, or gender.”
The Council of Great City Schools and the Council of Chief State School Officers, which represent urban school systems and commissioners of education, respectively, have both also joined in pushing back against too many exams.
Michael Casserly, the executive director of the Council of Great City Schools has said, “Testing is an important part of education, and of life. But it’s time that we step back and see if the tail is wagging the dog.”
The Institute for Democratic Education in America (IDEA) is a national coalition of educators and others who are interested in completely restructuring how students are taught in the U.S., and it too disagrees with high-stakes testing.
Overall, there has been a nationwide pushback against too many tests — especially ones that have serious implications for students — over the past decade. Unfortunately, while some battles are being won, the war against regressive education policies rages on.
Pencils down
The truth is, tests aren’t all they’re cracked up to be — as in, they don’t always provide an accurate measurement of how much a student has learned. That doesn’t stop policy-makers from calling for more of them, though (in some cases, even for four-year olds and younger).
The bottom line is that educational policies take time to become aligned with research, and test anxiety will continue to be a problem for students at all levels, including graduate school. In the meantime, those students will be left with little choice but to do their best.
Arguably, the best-case scenario is for the student not to focus on the score received, but rather what the test itself is able to teach them; what areas of weakness, if any, does the test expose? Discovering those can lead to an opportunity to fill in the foundation for the next level of study.
In many instances, it’s simply unfair to have to take the test to begin with. However, if students can exercise the intelligence and fortitude to turn an unfair situation into an opportunity to learn and grow, then they’ll be well on their way to a lifetime of success — great test results or not.
