MAMAY P's Pinoy Halu-Halo

Saturday, November 9, 2013

Guilty as Charged

Assessment of students’ skills and performance through observations and other traditional testing methods is not only for the concern of the learners but also for the teachers. This is because the outcome of the evaluation does not only reflect the level of students’ understanding but also indicate the quality of instruction received by the learners. Wary of this implication, teachers do their best to see to it that their students’ performance and skills meet the standards set by school officials. To achieve this, more often than not, teachers result to teaching to the test. Is this cheating?

Teaching to the test refers to giving instruction to students of the contents of the standard tests that they shall take in a given time. Nothing is wrong in this definition. The problem lies when the teachers or instructors give the exact items or similar to it during class discussion or review. Some academicians assert that this kind of tactic is wrong because it is tantamount to cheating. Popham (2001) argues that item testing is unacceptable because it takes away valid inferences about the outcome of the assessment because the result assumes that the students also understand the other contents of the curriculum not just the items appearing on the test.

Veteran educator Jeanne Clements (2013) argues in favor of teaching to the test and recommends its wide use. However, she is not talking about reviewing the exact items on the standardized test but on the specific contents of the test. She stresses that the test does not rely on rote memorization of facts and concepts. She further asserts that no one condemn licensure examinations for professionals when the reviewers also result to teaching to the test.

As a student at Tapinac Elementary School in Olongapo City, I had never experienced that my teachers were actually using the outmost form of teaching to the test, which we can also refer to as “cheating to the test.” We can all infer that my teachers knew before hand the contents or subject matters of the standard or achievement tests to be given at designated time that they needed to teach us students. However, they never drill us on the actual test items or “clones” of them. They just presented us with the format and the directions of the actual test to familiarize ourselves to save time. Since we knew before hand that the result of the test will not become part of our final grade (which we never knew if ever true), test anxiety was diminished.

Nowadays, teachers’ performance are also gauged against the results of their students’ evaluation. As a result, they result to “cheating to the test” or during performance evaluation conducted by principals and other district supervisors. One of the tactics employ during visits of high ranking school officials and achievement tests is to tell low-performing pupils not to come to class during the date of the visit or test. A drill before the visit is perfected by simulating the visit’s scenario through giving high achievers their roles, that is, who will answer first, who will ask question and what, etc. This results to high satisfactory rating to students, teachers and schools.

To overcome their shortcomings as administrators, principals and teachers, there are many instances that sample or the actual test papers are being reviewed by the students and teachers. Because no one from the students up to high ranking officials of the district want to get a failing or unsatisfactory rating or remark from those above them, the performance maybe conceived as cooperative. This kind of drama becomes unacceptable when the learners do not gain from the experience. As long as the students understand the materials being presented and taken during class and these items are not the actual items, teaching to the actual test items is not wrong. This is also what is happening during review classes for the professional accreditation and certification. Teaching to the test is reprehensible if the test items being reviewed are the actual and same items or their clones.