Deborah Landry Teachers Summary

Author Deborah Landry in her article “Teachers' (k-5) perceptions of student behaviors during standardized testing” written for the Curriculum and Teaching Dialogue in 2006 examines the effects of standardized testing on student behavior as perceived by their teachers. Landry works with sixty-three teachers in grades kindergarten through grade five from two northeastern school districts in Oklahoma and found teachers to have had perceived many changes in student behavior during standardized testing. These changes had a wide range of what was described by Landry as distressing results including which included such things as fear and a sense of helplessness by the students observed. Landry also found that not only had standardized testing affected students negatively by raising such things as anxiety levels but also discovered that it is also impacting the teachers themselves who are responsible for

educating these children as well as in most cases administer these exams. Teachers were found to have felt helpless to object to its requirements and that many had left the field in such of other professions as a result. In her survey teachers were also found to be adjusting their teaching style to ensure that from day one students were being prepared for standardized testing exams. The article gives a full list of all the perceived behavioral changes in students by their teachers and also makes some recommendations that may help eliminate some of the issues.
The article claims that standardized testing creates a stressful environment for students and changes their behavior.

The article was created on the back information provided through and online survey of sixty-three teachers and four interviews with teachers, and the results of the survey were used as the primary source for this article. The author also injects some additional information from her personal experience as a teacher and a viewpoint of a parent when she compares students preparing for standardized test to her daughters preparing for a recital of a composition piece on their piano. The table in the article provides a very good visual representation of all the data collected through the study in a simple format that is easy to understand. The author provides no counterargument to her claim, and as a result, gives the impression that she has a certain bias towards the topic. Her background being one of a teacher and the references she made to her time in that profession also shows that she may not be able to view the subject matter from an unbiased

standpoint.
The Article in my opinion is a poor example of an argument. The author comes across as being biased by only providing information that supports her claim, and fails to provide her readers with a counterargument. The author also included some of her personal experiences into the article which also adds to my suspicion of this being a biased article designed to present only the negative effects on student behavior as a result of standardized testing. The style of writing seems to be geared towards other educators and parents informing them of the results of the study. The author has written on a topic that every parent can connect with and has done a good job of providing detailed information and has used clear comparisons through her own experiences both as a teacher and mother to explain what she believes to be the results of the study. I believe that the author may have been motivated to carry out this study based on her dislike of standardized testing which she sees as not being good for students learning.