Enhancing Self-Efficacy for High-Stakes Reading Tests.

Abstract

Federal legislation in the United States (the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001) calls for an nual in reading and other subject ar eas in grades 3 through 8. Ostensibly, the purpose of this law is to monitor educational progress and identify children who have fallen behind academi cally so that they can receive help. However, evi dence suggests that neither retention nor social promotion has a significant impact on student achievement (Jenkins & Weldon, 1999; Roderick, Nagaoka, Bacon, & Easton, 2000; Thompson & Cunningham, 2000) and that, even with effective remediation, long-term negative effects of retention remain (H?user, 2000). Called tests because the impor tant decision about promotion to the next grade of ten depends heavily on standardized test scores, these measures and performance on them are criti cal to the lives of millions of children, parents, and teachers. They remain important despite recogni tion that reliance upon one measure?high-stakes tests?to determine promotion is problematic for many reasons. The alternative position is that mul tiple measures more accurately determine student ability and, therefore, provide a stronger data base for such important decisions (American Educational Research Association, 2000; Ananda & Rabinowitz, 2000; Domenech, 2000; Gratz, 2000; Hoffman, Assaf, & Paris, 2001; Howe, 2000; Huber & Moore, 2000; International Reading Association, 1999; Kane, 2001; Lewis, 2000; Madaus & Clarke, 2001; Prystowsky, 2001; Smith & Fey, 2000; Villaire, 2001). In order to more fully appreciate the effect of annual high-stakes testing, it helps to understand the perspective of students who read well but un fortunately do not do well on high-stakes tests of reading ability. Their reading scores reflect test anxiety to a large degree, rather than true reading ability. (Those who design and produce standard ized tests call this testing error) According to Pintrich and Schunk (1996), as many as 25% of all elementaryand secondary-level children in the United States, about 10 million, have some degree of test anxiety, and about 10%, some 4 to 5 million, have a level of test anxiety considered high. Thus, while the stage has been set at the federal legisla tive level with the decision to test annually, a hypothetical but likely scenario in the cafeteria of an elementary school not far from Washington, D.C., reveals two teachers' trepidations and mis givings about high-stakes testing. Mr. Wilson and Mrs. Parker (pseudonyms) are overheard discussing high-stakes testing. Mr. Wilson says,

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