High- vs. Low-stakes Tests

1. High- vs. Low-stakes Tests.
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Presented by : Sarah Taouir
Instructor : Mr.Chraa Ayad
Centre Régionale des Métiers D’Education et de Formation Souss-Massa
Module : Testing & Assessment

2. High-stakes testing
• High-stakes testing refers to testing that determines
one’s promotion, admission, graduation and salary for
a given academic position. High-stakes testing can
apply to both students and faculty. A high-stakes test is
any test that is a single, defined assessment, draws a
clear line between those who pass and fail and has
consequences depending on the outcome.
• High-stakes tests are tests used to make important
decisions about students. These include whether
students should be promoted, allowed to graduate, or
admitted to programs.
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3. • Examples of high-stakes tests and their "stakes" include:
• Driver's license tests and the legal ability to drive
• College entrance examinations in some countries, such as Brazil's National High
School Exam, and admission to a high-quality university
• Visa interview/Citizenship test for migration
• Many job interviews or drug tests and being hired
• High school exit examinations and high-school diplomas
• Ph.D. oral exams and receiving the doctorate
• Standardized test of language proficiency in work, school placement and visa
application contexts
• Etc.
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4. • High-stakes testing in schools is
based on the premise that student
learning will increase if educators
and students are held accountable
for achievement.
• By definition, testing becomes high
stakes when the outcomes are used
to make decisions about promotion,
admissions, graduation, and
salaries.
• High-stakes testing is often
associated with public reporting of
testing results as a way to bring
attention to the assessment results.
• For schools with high or improved
performance on assessments, there
are typically rewards and for
schools that underperform, there are
often penalties that can result in the
replacement of administrators or
teachers or retention of students at
grade level,
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5. • Research on high-stakes testing has found
that test preparation can distort the results
of the test and lead to invalid interpretations
of learning gains. Policymakers have
increased the use of high-stakes tests as a
mechanism to rank and label schools,
leading to public use of test scores as
measures of desirable real estate and as
indicators of school and instructional
program quality.
• Proponents of high-stakes testing have
maintained that the tests measure a
consistent standard for all students
regardless of their location, gender,
ethnicity, or socioeconomic status.
Advocates of testing maintain that the tests
clearly identify what is to be learned and
that by reporting scores, teachers and
students will be more motivated to do well.
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6. • Research on the impact of high-stakes testing has shown there are significant
consequences that coincide with the implementation of assessment programs
with significant stakes. Some of the consequences are positive: concrete
standards, remediation programs, and attention given to low-achieving students.
• But others are negative and include a narrowed curriculum, instruction that
focuses narrowly on what is assessed, cheating, and practicing for the tests.
Other consequences of high-stakes testing programs include changes in student
and teacher morale, and policies that disproportionately negatively impact
minority students.
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7. Low-stakes testing
• Low-stakes testing involves the frequent use
of evaluation instruments that have little
impact on a student’s course grade.
• Refers to a method of assessment where
students are :
Given the opportunity to try repeatedly,
Make mistakes and potentially fail and to
learn from those mistakes with minimal
academic penalty.
• Examples :
the use of clickers in class ,
mastery-learning quizzing systems in
which students can repeatedly take
quizzes on specific topics until they
master the material.
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8. • Types of low stakes testing can include:
Multiple choice quizzes (discussed in more
detail below).
Quick quiz – answers in book (see the
example below)
Keyword definitions (both ways).
Vocabulary tests/spelling tests.
Labelling a diagram from memory.
Recalling key facts/dates/people from
memory.
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TYPES OF LOW STAKES TESTING

9.  An overwhelming body of evidence from studies in cognitive
science, psychology, economics, physics, chemistry, math, and
many other disciplines indicates that students learn most
effectively when frequent opportunities to recall and attempt to
apply the knowledge they have acquired.
 Roediger (2013) provides a summary of the cognitive
psychological research on this issue. He notes that student
learning is enhanced by frequent practice, and this is most
effective when the practice is distributed across time and across
tasks.
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10. • In his study of effective college teachers, Ken Bain (2004) states:
Because the best teachers believe that most students can learn, they look for ways
to help them to do so. They ask how they can encourage students to think aloud
and create a nonthreatening atmosphere in which they can do so. They seek ways
to give students the opportunity to struggle with their thoughts without facing
assessments of their efforts, to try, to come up short, receive feedback on their
efforts, and try again before facing any "grading."
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11. Video
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12. The key element of low-stakes testing is that students be given the
opportunity to try, make mistakes, and to learn from those mistakes with little
or no penalty. While this notion seems foreign to many college instructors,
consider how we train athletes. They do not spend much time sitting in
classrooms, listening to lectures about how to play their sport. Instead, they
practice specific skills, make mistakes, and are given suggestions on how to
improve their skills.
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13.  High Stakes  Low Stakes
 Enables students to demonstrate competency, strengths, and
synthesis of course objectives across the full course.
 Enables students to practice and learn from mistakes; typically
focused on a specific element or content in a course.
 High percentages of course grades associated with fewer major
assessment points and therefore fewer feedback points.
 Lower percentage of course grades associated with multiple
assessments; feedback for improvement is provided.
 May not provide learners with feedback early in the course, so
they are unaware of how they are doing, what their strengths
are and where they may need to improve.
 Allows learners to know how they are doing early in the semester
and throughout the semester: identifies what they are doing well
where and how to improve, etc.
 There is high stress points as fewer assessments are used.  May be less stressful, as they are perceived at a lower value.
 Is a single, defined assessment.
 Has a clear line drawn between those who pass and those who
fail.
 Has direct consequences for passing or failing
 Steady workload spread out over the course of the term. This can be
a particular challenge for students taking more than 2 courses.
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High- vs. Low-stakes Tests.

14. conclusion
• Incorporating a variety of assessment approaches can
help manage workload as well as provide students the
opportunity for feedback on their progress throughout
the course.
• While not always the case, high stakes assessments are
typically associated with higher assessment value/score
and low stakes with lower; however, meaningfully
marrying the two approaches to assessment can help
create a more robust and effective learning experience.
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15. • https://www.brown.edu/academics/education-alliance/teaching-
diverse-learners/assessment/high-stakes-testing-0
• https://tophat.com/glossary/h/high-stakes-testing/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k8aeDUC9XQ
• https://www.oswego.edu/celt/low-stakes-testing
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-stakes_testing
• https://ukedchat.com/2020/03/16/low-stakes-testing/
• https://blog.citl.mun.ca/instructionalresources/high-stakes-and-low-
stakes-assessment/
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References :

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