Success and Failure: A Micro-Ethnographic Comparison of Navajo and Anglo Students' Perceptions of Testing

ABSTRACT

The perceptions, attitudes, and understandings of Anglo students about school achievement tests stand in sharp contrast to those of Navajo students. How then do Anglo and Navajo students perceive testing in their classrooms and how does it affect their feelings and performance there? A comparison of these groups found a dichotomy between them with respect to their acceptance of testing and understanding of its importance and purpose. That a public test of a student's knowledge should determine the success or failure of learning is congruent with the expectations of Anglo students. In the lives of Navajo students, however, an assessment of learning through individual assessment is culturally incongruent and against their experience and expectations. Test-taking itself is a cultural activity; it depends on the acceptance of two specific values—first, the value that achievement is an individual accomplishment, and, second, that the individual should display that accomplishment publically. The Anglo students shared these values, the Navajo students did not. This raises an important policy question for the schools: Can or should we enculturate students more effectively into the values required by testing, or can and should the forms of testing themselves be changed?