Negotiating the Demands of High-Stakes Testing: Graduate Students' Experiences as Teachers Preparing Students for Standardized Assessments in Reading and Language Arts

Abstract

This qualitative interview study examined the experiences of four language and literacy education Ph.D. students, as classroom teachers, preparing students for high-stakes testing in public schools. Two of the participants taught in a western U.S. state while the other two currently teach in a southeastern state. The findings revealed that the participants supported progressive education practices. However, the teachers in the in the western state indicated that their state's lower-stakes testing program coincided with their beliefs about teaching and furthered their teaching goals while the teachers in the southeastern state felt that their state's higher-stakes testing program conflicted with their beliefs and hindered their teaching. Participants' approaches for negotiating the demands of testing with their pedagogical beliefs are described.