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Visibility and differentiation: systemic testing in a developing country context
Author(s) -
Hoadley Ursula,
Muller Johan
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
the curriculum journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.843
H-Index - 36
eISSN - 1469-3704
pISSN - 0958-5176
DOI - 10.1080/09585176.2015.1129982
Subject(s) - context (archaeology) , visibility , agency (philosophy) , test (biology) , ambivalence , scale (ratio) , standardized test , developing country , sociology , psychology , public relations , political science , social psychology , mathematics education , economics , economic growth , social science , geography , paleontology , cartography , archaeology , meteorology , biology
Why has large‐scale standardised testing attracted such a bad press? Why has pedagogic benefit to be derived from test results been downplayed? The paper investigates this question by first surveying the pros and cons of testing in the literature, and goes on to examine educators' responses to standardised, large‐scale tests in a sample of low socio‐economic status (SES) schools in the Western Cape, South Africa. The paper shows that teachers and school managers have an ambivalent attitude to tests, wary of the reputational costs they can incur, but also curious about the differentiated picture test results can give them as they learn to ‘read’ the underlying codes embedded in the results. The paper concludes that a focus on what tests make visible and a recognition of the pedagogic agency of teachers points to potential pedagogic benefits of systemic tests.