Standardized testing is an assessment tool based on a prescribed curriculum. The questions are standardized in the name of fairness to all students the questions are administered to. In order to ensure accuracy in marking of standardized tests, the questions are usually in the form of mulitple choice or fill-in-the-blank types.
Standardized testing is used in screening examinations to measure achievement or ability. They are used to identify weak students at the beginning of Primary School education, for screening and identifying gifted children, for promotion to the next level, for streaming into various classes and subject combinations, and for promotion into high school or higher levels of learning.
When standardized tests are used across a country, teachers are sent scurrying to prepare their students for them. The reason is simple: students' results reflect on the teachers' ability to teach well. Students who do not perform under a teacher do not auger well for the teacher's promotional opportunities or even the bonus for the year. Teachers are thus driven to ways to ensure passes.
The first thing teachers do is to identify the curriculum standardized tests focus on. They thus narrow down the curriculum they should teach and instead of teaching what is important to the understanding of their students, they water down the curriculum to what standardized tests would possibly throw questions on.
Teachers would tend to sacrifice shorter topics if there is no time to finish teaching the curriculum for the year, resulting in a learning deficit for the weaker students. On the other hand, teachers may rush through the curriculum and try to take shortcuts in teaching. This cramming results in confusion for the students. The deficits accumulate and the teacher teaching the students in the new academic year is left with a bigger headache.
In some extreme cases, teaching may be reduced to drilling knowledge that standardized testing would cover, resulting in even greater teaching and learning deficits. Questions are modified slightly and given to the students over and over again. Students with elephant memories would do well while gifted students who are bored to death may resort to mischief and attempt the questions with both eyes shut and do badly.
Students are bored by repeated testing and teacher didactic explanations. Robbed of the learning experiences needed for understanding, these students become more bored, start playing truant and end up failing.
Teachers may start bribing students with rewards. Such motivations may not work with students who can only be motivated by achievements. Repeated failing grades do not raise their self-esteem and they tend to view such rewards as remote as Aladdin's lamp. Teachers misinterpret their disinterest in the reward system as ungratefulness, resulting in a worse learning environment for these students.
When teachers fail to motivate students in the classroom, students are reported to the discipline head or their parents, resulting in an even more miserable life for the students. What teachers are blinded to are their own inadequacies in teaching. The ones who are failing are not the students, but the teachers themselves.
Teachers who realize that standardized testing measure a limited curriculum and are likely to be highly reliable testing methodology are usually not perturbed by them. Instead, they are usually able to interpret the curriculum in the right light, design meaningful activities for their students to grasp knowledge and to learn to think in the right direction. These are the teachers who will bring their students to greater heights. These are the students who will learn the right way and understand their lessons so well that they will shine in these standardized tests.