High stakes testing and teacher access to professional opportunities: lessons from Indonesia

Abstract

High-stakes testing regimes, in which schools are judged on their capacity to attain high student results in national tests, are becoming common in both developed and developing nations, including the United States, Britain and Australia. However, while there has been substantial investigation around the impact of high-stakes testing on curriculum and pedagogy, there has been very little research looking at the impact on teachers' professional opportunities. The current project used a case study approach to examine the impact a high-stakes national testing programme had on teachers' access to professional learning and their teaching allocations in four Indonesian public schools. It found that better qualified teachers were allocated to classes that would be sitting for the national examinations, and that these teachers were given much more access to professional learning opportunities than those teaching non-examined year levels. This in turn impacted negatively on the staff morale of less qualified teaching staff and potentially on their career trajectories. Findings suggest that school leaders should be wary of targeting better qualified and/or more experienced staff to year levels sitting for high-stakes tests, as this may lead to staff stratification within schools, limiting opportunities for staff to learn from one another and reducing the morale of less qualified and less experienced staff. They also add support to a substantial body of research that suggests policy-makers should be wary of the flow-on effects of using performance in high-stakes tests as the key means of judging school effectiveness.

High-stakes testing policy and English language teaching: Voices of the leftovers

“…They believe other teachers do not have such a special status as they do. Ashadi and Rice (2016) found that teachers who taught NE-tested subjects are believed to gain more access to professional education. It is not uncommon that an English teacher is mandated to teach students sitting in the final year.…”

“…They tend to neglect the other materials that are beyond the simulation tests of NE. Ashadi and Rice (2016) found that teachers see NE as the breeding ground of discrimination on teacher professionalism development. Effendi and Suyudi (2017) revealed that teachers believed that they are confined in a comfort zone as they have to repeat the same materials every year, making them demotivated to improve their teaching strategies.…”

Sensitivity Of Differential Item Functioning Detection Methods On National Mathematics Examination In North Sumatera Province, Indonesia

“…Based on the research related to the DIF study for a number of dichotomy items, it can be concluded that (1). the study of the effects of DIF can be classified according to various factors, including gender, race, test difficulties, distribution of test participant abilities, sample size, length of test and many tests infected DIF; (2). commonly used methods comparing the efficacy of different methods of DIF (using CTT and IRT analysis) are: MH method and Logistic Regression, used to compare power tests and level type I errors as shown by the research of Hidalgo and Lopez-Pina and Moses, Miao, and Dorans and Vaughn and Wang [34].…”

“…The are three DIF detection methods used in this study: (1). IRT-Likelihood ratio (IRT-LR), (2). Mantel-Haenszel (MH), and (3).…”

A Rasch Model Analysis on Designing Needs-Based Teacher Professional Development Programs

“…A number of studies have been devoted to address teacher professionalism issues as well as TPD programs aiming at enhancing teachers' professionalism [21,22,23]. TPD programs in Indonesia which focuses on improving four areas of teacher competencies: pedagogical, professional, personality, and social competences, have been developed intensively along with the implementation of teacher certification programs, Teacher Profession Education (PPG), as well as other forms of teacher training programs conducted by local governments or appointed training institutions.…”