Will this be on the test?

Will this be on the test?

If you hear this question in your classroom, you know something has gone wrong.

Here are just some of the potential problems associated with this question:

• It is symptomatic of extrinsic motivation;
• (Or worse…) It is symptomatic of a teacher using a test to generate compliance;
• Students are devaluing anything that is not ‘on the test’;
• Students are valuing test performance over actual learning;
• (Or worse…) Students feel their teacher or parents are valuing test performance over actual learning;
• Students are concerned about the consequence of a test score;
• Students are wasting cognitive and attentional capacity thinking about the test rather than their actual learning;
• Creativity is suppressed (because most tests reward compliance and memorisation rather than creative, divergent, or innovative thinking);
• Students are incentivised to provide the ‘right answer’ rather than thinking critically or innovatively;
• Students are focussed on some arbitrary ‘scoring’ on a test to demonstrate their learning;
• (Or worse…) The teacher is using a test as the primary measure of student learning;
• (Or worse still…) The teacher is emphasising test performance because the teacher / school leadership is using student test scores as a primary measure of the teacher’s proficiency, skill, or performance.

But there is one thing even more worrying, than a student asking ‘Will this be on the test?’. And that’s a teacher saying “This will be on the test.”

That’s not at all to say that assessment is bad – quite the opposite. There are many, many effective and valuable ways of formatively and summatively assessing student learning. Some of the best involve students actively constructing or performing or transforming something. And many of these methods involve collaboration and teamwork and ‘open books‘.

But rarely is a ‘test’ the best way to really assess learning. And never is it a good way to motivate students.