Article Sidebar

Submitted
March 31, 2023
Accepted
December 15, 2023
Published
December 16, 2023
Download
PDF
Statistic
Read Counter : 94 Download : 90

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Main Article Content

Abstract

The Education Ministry has eliminated standardised high-stakes testing called Ujian Nasional (UN) since 2021 throughout schools all around Indonesia. However, it might be practical to look backwards at the UN and its implementation with the impact it gives on the teachers. This article has a concern about the washback consequences of a high-stakes exam on teachers. The effects were investigated within the specific context of the 2016 UN for students in Indonesia at the junior secondary level. A semi-structured interview with eight English teachers was set up to explore the teachers' perceptions towards the UN. Regarding feelings, all participants shared divergent feelings ranging from disinterested to excessive levels of fear or anxiety and mixed feelings. The data also showed mixed opinions, both positive and negative, regarding the examination. The students were thought to be motivated to study because the examination was used for selection purposes. The results did, however, also imply that the students' performance on the national exam was thought to have been assessed unfairly. The instructors demonstrated how the exam affected their teaching roles and methods. Making the national exam a low-stakes test was one of the suggestions made by attendees to enhance it.

Article Details

License

Copyright (c) 2023 Maya Puspitasari, Muhammad Arifin Pelawi

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Lisensi Creative Commons
Ciptaan disebarluaskan di bawah Lisensi Creative Commons Atribusi-BerbagiSerupa 4.0 Internasional.
How to Cite
Puspitasari, M., & Pelawi, M. A. (2023). English High-stakes Testing in Indonesia: Friend or Foe?. Journal of English Education and Teaching, 7(4), 1071–1084. https://doi.org/10.33369/jeet.7.4.1071-1084
Download Citation
Endnote/Zotero/Mendeley (RIS)
BibTeX

References

  1. Brown, J.D. (1995). The elements of language curriculum: A systematic approach to program development. Boston: Heinle & Heinle Publisher
  2. Adler-Greene, L. (2019). Every Student Succeeds Act: Are schools making sure every student succeeds. Touro L. Rev., 35, 11.
  3. Alderson, J. C. (1984). Testing, the teacher and the student. Cahiers de l'APLIUT, 3(3), 7-21. https://doi.org/10.3406/apliu.1984.1788
  4. Alderson, J. C., & Wall, D. (1993). Does washback exist?. Applied linguistics, 14(2), 115-129. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/14.2.115
  5. Ali, M. M., & Hamid, M. O. (2020). Teaching English to the test: Why does negative washback exist within secondary education in Bangladesh?. Language Assessment Quarterly, 17(2), 129-146. https://doi.org/10.1080/15434303.2020.1717495
  6. Andrews, S. (2004). Washback and curriculum innovation. In Washback in language testing (pp. 59-72). Routledge.
  7. Asian Development Bank (ADB) & Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). (2015). Education in Indonesia: Rising to the challenge. Paris: OECD Publishing.
  8. Au, W. (2023). Unequal by design: High-stakes testing and the standardization of Inequality (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.
  9. Counsell, S. L., & Wright, B. L. (2018). High-stakes accountability systems: Creating cultures of fear. Global Education Review, 5(2), 189-202.
  10. Dong, M. (2020). Structural relationship between learners’ perceptions of a test, learning practices, and learning outcomes: A study on the washback mechanism of a high-stakes test. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 64, 100824. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stueduc.2019.100824
  11. Falabella, A. (2014). The Performing School: The Effects of Market & Accountability policies. Education policy analysis archives, 22(70). https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.v22n70.2014
  12. Finardi, K., & Archanjo, R. (2018). Washback effects of the Science without Borders, English without Borders and Language without Borders programs in Brazilian language policies and rights. In Language policy and language acquisition planning (pp. 173-185). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75963-0_10
  13. Hofflinger, A., & von Hippel, P. T. (2020). Missing children: how Chilean schools evaded accountability by having low-performing students miss high-stakes tests. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, 32(2), 127-152. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11092-020-09318-8
  14. Holloway, J., & Brass, J. (2018). Making accountable teachers: The terrors and pleasures of performativity. Journal of education policy, 33(3), 361-382. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2017.1372636
  15. Imsa-ard, P. (2021). Choices of teaching practices: Does the English UN cause Thai EFL teachers to teach to the test. TESOL International Journal, 16(5), 56-86.
  16. Keiler, L. S. (2018). Teachers’ roles and identities in student-centered classrooms. International journal of STEM education, 5(1), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-018-0131-6
  17. Kirkland, M. C. (1971). The effects of tests on students and schools. Review of Educational Research, 41(4), 303-350. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543041004303
  18. Lai, C., Yeung, Y., & Hu, J. (2016). University student and teacher perceptions of teacher roles in promoting autonomous language learning with technology outside the classroom. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 29(4), 703-723. https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2015.1016441
  19. Liu, X., & Yu, J. (2021). Relationships between learning motivations and practices as influenced by a high-stakes language test: The mechanism of washback on learning. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 68, 100967. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stueduc.2020.100967
  20. Perryman, J., & Calvert, G. (2020). What motivates people to teach, and why do they leave? Accountability, performativity and teacher retention. British Journal of Educational Studies, 68(1), 3-23. https://doi.org/10.1080/00071005.2019.1589417
  21. Hamp‐Lyons, L. (1998). Ethical test preparation practice: The case of the TOEFL. Tesol Quarterly, 32(2), 329-337. https://doi.org/10.2307/3587587
  22. Kohler, M. (2015). Teachers as mediators in the foreign language classroom. In Teachers as Mediators in the Foreign Language Classroom. Multilingual Matters. https://doi.org/10.21832/9781783093076
  23. Silverman, D. (2015). Interpreting qualitative data (5th ed.). London: SAGE Publications Ltd.
  24. Spratt, M. (2005). Washback and the classroom: The implications for teaching and learning of studies of washback from exams. Language teaching research, 9(1), 5-29. https://doi.org/10.1191/1362168805lr152oa
  25. Tan, C. (2020). Beyond high-stakes exam: A neo-Confucian educational programme and its contemporary implications. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 52(2), 137-148. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2019.1605901
  26. Tsagari, D. (2011). Washback of a high-stakes English exam on teachers’ perceptions and practices. Selected papers on theoretical and applied linguistics, 19, 431-445. https://doi.org/10.26262/istal.v19i0.5521
  27. Vasquez Heilig, J., Brewer, T. J., & Ojeda Pedraza, J. (2018). Examining the myth of accountability, high-stakes testing, and the achievement gap. Journal of Family Strengths, 18(1), 9.
  28. Veselak, K. M. (2018). Teachers' Beliefs About the Purpose of Education in a High-Stakes Testing Environment. National Teacher Education Journal, 11(3).
  29. Wall, D. (2013). Washback. In The Routledge handbook of language testing (pp. 93-106). Routledge.
  30. Zhan, Y., & Wan, Z. H. (2016). Test takers’ beliefs and experiences of a high-stakes computer-based English listening and speaking test. RELC Journal, 47(3), 363-376. https://doi.org/10.1177/0033688216631174