From Leaving CertiFiCate to Leaving SChooL a Longitudinal Study ...

Introduction 7
of learning that are tested, encourage teachers to ‘teach to test’, and motivate
students to learn test-taking skills rather than content and higher
order cognitive skills (Gordon and Reese, 1997; Klein, Hamilton,
McCaffrey and Stecher, 2000). Teaching to the test is seen to negate the
test’s ability to serve as a valid indicator of the knowledge or skill it was
originally intended to measure (Madaus, 1988; Looney, 2009).
High stakes testing is also seen as having consequences for social
differentiation. Concerns have been expressed about the extent to which
high stakes examinations increase gaps between groups by rewarding
high-achieving students and schools and sanctioning low-achieving students
and schools (Perna and Thomas, 2008). Some sociologists argue
that standardised tests limit access to resources and play a role in sorting
students into their prospective social positions where the school is
viewed ‘primarily [as] a testing, selecting, and distributing agency’ (Sorokin,
1959, p. 188, in Grodsky et al., 2008). Research has examined
inequalities in test score distributions by race/ethnicity, social origins
and gender over time, and found that test scores consistently vary by
socio-economic status as measured by parental education and family income
(Grodsky, 2008, p. 387). The presence of high stakes tests may
also result in a skewing of resources towards the year groups being tested
and to particular groups of students (West, 2010). In England, for example,
school principals have reported targeting interventions towards ‘borderline’
students in order to improve the ranking of their school in the
league tables (Wilson et al., 2006).
The unintended consequences of high stakes testing do not only derive
from school accountability practices since there is some evidence
that similar practices can emerge within ‘high stakes for students’ systems.
In Northern Ireland, Johnston and McClune (2000) found that
teachers tended to use transmission teaching, with an emphasis on factual
knowledge, in the final year of primary education in response to
presence of the transfer test, which determined student access to more
selective grammar schools. There was a reduction in the emphasis on
conceptual understanding and on the experiential learning favoured by
students. Similarly, Madaus and Greaney (2005) analyse the effects of
the Irish Primary School Certificate, abolished in 1967. They found that
sixth class teachers emphasised subjects covered in the exam and ne-