Rogerian Essay

Standardized Testing: Educational Researchers vs. The Government People from all walks of life have taken standardized tests. According to many people, these tests help place students in the correct educational environments and test them on basic skills necessary for higher education but some view standardized tests as a more serious subject. Students, teachers, parents, government and school board officials, and many more groups of people can debate back and forth all they want about standardized tests but the major discussion in today 's era is not the fact that standardized tests either do or do not play a vital role in a students schooling but rather the argument that high stakes testing may be affecting students and education systems in a positive fashion. People with Ph.D 's in the study of Educational Research Methods will play the role of opposition in this argument. Of course, not all Educational Research Method graduates with doctorate degrees will agree with the fact that standardized tests have negative effects on students and school systems but many of these doctors have a firm stance that high stakes testing is affecting these subjects in a negative manner. Many of these researchers argue similar topics such as the fact that high stakes testing has negative effects on a students motivation to learn and that teachers tend to focus on specific areas of certain subjects instead of the broad spectrum of education. For example, Audrey Amrein and David Berliner state that, "Researchers have found that when rewards and sanctions are attached to performance, on tests students become less intrinsically motivated to learn and less likely to engage in critical thinking"(Amrein 32). The point that Amrein and Berliner are trying to make is that when the stakes of individual tests increase, teachers stop pushing their students to explore the subjects in school that interests them most. Some doctors will even go to the extent of claiming that, "Test-driven

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