Cultivating the myopic learner: the shared project of high-stakes and low-stakes assessment

Abstract

This paper argues that, despite the obvious and important differences between high-stakes and low-stakes assessment, there remain important points in common. These manifest themselves at a sociological level, where each tradition of assessment shares a similar disposition towards power. It is argued that both high-stakes and low-stakes assessment, as they are practised in England today, act together in support of a wider regime of power. This regime relies upon the construction of specialised subjectivities, defined by a myopic and self-perpetuating concern with individual progression.

Keywords:

• assessment
• biopower
• disciplinary power
• process

Notes

1. The value-added system was later zeroed arbitrarily at a score of either 100 or 1000 to avoid negative scores.

2. The future of the contextual value-added system is now in doubt, following a change of government and a promise to remove contextual value-added as it is now seen as ‘morally wrong to have an attainment measure which entrenches low aspirations for children because of their background' (Department for Education 2010, 68). Whether or not this could have a significant effect on the use of progress-tracking technologies in schools remains to be seen.