Visibility and differentiation: systemic testing in a developing country context

ABSTRACT

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.

KEYWORDS:

• Testing
• pedagogy
• differentiation
• equity

Acknowledgements

This publication is based on work conducted within the SPADE research project, which is sponsored by the Department of Higher Education and Training and the Department of Basic Education through the European Union Primary Education Sector Policy Support Programme. The work has also been supported in part by the National Research Foundation of South Africa (UID 85813). Any opinion, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsors, who accept no liability whatsoever in this regard. The authors would also like to thank the reviewer and editors for their helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. WCED test results are given to the schools concerned only, and are not otherwise distributed by the department. Schools themselves often exchange results with those in their neighbourhood (which is where the comparisons come from). The one exception is that the ’10 best’ and ’10 most improved’ schools are publicly congratulated and celebrated at a ceremony. In this way, public naming and shaming is avoided where possible, though clearly this cannot be entirely avoided. The pleasure and shame we see in our data is, therefore, mainly expressing shame felt in terms of the school community; pleasure in good performance is more widely celebrated. There is no school level public reporting of ANAs; only provincial aggregates are published.

2. SACMEQ – Southern and Eastern African Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality, TIMSS – Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, PIRLS – Progress in International Reading and Literacy Study.

3. The SPADE (Schools Performing Above Demographic Expectations) is a four-year research project located in the School of Education at UCT. It forms part of a national European Union funded Primary Education Sector Policy Support Programme (EU SPSP) Project. The SPADE project is interested in the factors that account for primary schools in disadvantaged communities that manage to perform slightly above expectations, given their social location.

4. This could be interpreted as denying teachers time off for lunch. In many schools in the South African context, this refers to the phenomenon of eating and socialising taking the place of teaching.

Additional information

Funding

SPADE project which is funded by the Department of Higher Education and Training and the Department of Basic Education through the European Union Primary Sector Policy Support Programme and the National Research Foundation of South Africa (UID 85813).

Notes on contributors

Ursula Hoadley

Ursula Hoadley is an associate professor in the School of Education at the University of Cape Town, Rhodesgift 7707, South Africa. Her research areas are curriculum, pedagogy and teachers work. She focuses in particular on primary schooling processes in contexts of poverty.

Johan Muller

Johan Muller is emeritus professor of curriculum in the School of Education at the University of Cape Town, Rhodesgift 7707, South Africa. His research is focused on issues of knowledge and the curriculum for both schools and universities. His most recent book (co-edited with Michael Young), Knowledge, Expertise and the Professions (London: Routledge, 2014) explores the differentiatedness and specialisation of professional knowledge.