While student stress and anxiety are frequently cited as having negative effects on students' academic performance, the role that instructors can play in mitigating these challenges is often underappreciated. We provide summaries of different evidence-based strategies, ranging from changes in instructional strategies to specific classroom…

This paper reflects on UK mathematics education following the poor performance in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) metric, which compares reading, science, and mathematics across 27 countries. We compared a range of features within secondary school mathematics in the UK with the countries outperforming the UK. We note…

Learning analytics (LA) offer benefits and challenges for online learning, but prior to collecting data on high-stakes summative assessments as proof of student learning, LA researchers should engage instructors as partners to ensure the quality of course materials through the formative evaluation of individual items (Bienkowski et al., 2012;…

It is a requirement for pre-service students in Initial Teacher Education programs in Australia to successfully complete a teaching performance assessment (TPA) before they graduate. This follows similar requirements in other international contexts, particularly the United States, where standard-based assessment is also a focus. As members of the…

While previous studies have examined the impact of digital multimodal composing (DMC) as a new literacy activity on second language (L2) learners' language development, L2 teachers' engagement with DMC is under-conceptualized and underexplored. Based on a qualitative analysis of five teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL) who implemented…

This study represents an effort to explore and understand the experiences of individuals who have significant stakes on Physical Education and Sports (PES) courses either through being practically involved in teaching or planning this course or by being theoretically engaged in discourses relevant to the nature and normative enactment of the…

Purpose: Private supplementary tutoring, widely known as shadow education, has long been visible in East Asia, and now has spread to other parts of the world including Europe. This article maps the phenomenon, showing variations within Europe and analyzing its growth, underlying forces, and policy implications. Design/Approach/Methods: The article…

This qualitative case study explored the teachers' and administrators' perceptions of a newly implemented teacher evaluation policy in a high-stakes testing state, and how this policy impacted their motivation. Five science teachers and their immediate supervisors were interviewed, and their perceptions were analyzed through motivational theories…

The opt-out movement, a grassroots coalition of opposition to high-stakes tests that are used to sort students, evaluate teachers, and rank schools, has the largest participation on Long Island, New York, where approximately 50% of the eligible students in grades three to eight opted out of the English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics tests in…

This study examines the relationships among various major factors that may affect the difficulty level of language tests in an attempt to enhance the robustness of item difficulty estimation, which constitutes a crucial factor ensuring the equivalency of high-stakes tests. The observed difficulties of the reading and listening sections of two EFL…

Few scholars have raised the question; why are teacher education programs not preparing teachers for global competence and global perspectives pedagogy? The purpose of this article is to explore this question. The study utilizes qualitative and practitioner research methodologies. Four factors marginalizing the preparation of teachers for global…

In this exploratory mixed methods survey study, we assess preservice teachers' (n=379) experiences with and beliefs about their high-stakes testing experiences and analyze how they relate to their beliefs about the role and efficacy of high-stakes testing in education and their future profession. Using Likert, vignette, and open-ended response…

This paper reports on a study that explored the impacts of the Secondary Education Examination (SEE) English test on students' motivation to learn English. Unlike previous studies on test impact, this study has extensively explored both the pre-test and post-test impacts of the test on students' motivation to learn English. The data generated…

This article examines a theory of "weak humanism" that says (1) secondary English classes should focus on personal development and culture and (2) English classes should deliver economic benefits indirectly, i.e. as knock-on effects of studying the personal and the cultural. Economic benefits are defined here as knowledge/skills students…

Given the well-documented pervasiveness of high-stakes assessment in preK--12 schools, many researchers have investigated how testing affects students. In this article, Sarah Byrne Bausell and Jocelyn A. Glazier explore the ways that high-stakes testing influences beginning teacher socialization and the ways that teacher colleagues shape one…