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Effect of stress on student academic performance
Implication Of Stress And Academic Performance
Implication Of Stress And Academic Performance
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a. Introduction
The present-day education system in Ontario has progressed tremendously over the past few decades, but additional improvements can always be crafted. The government you direct has the potential to make revolutionary changes to the education system, which will benefit future generations of students in the long run. The following proposal deals with the topic of standardized testing within secondary schools and the consequences it may bring. Standardized tests are not necessary in secondary schools as they severely impact the mental health of students and subject material is not remembered in the long term. As a result, standardized tests should be removed from the curriculum and instead replaced with more class lessons relating
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to subject material. b. Sociological Perspective We can unveil the effect of issuing standardized tests using sociologist Michel Foucault’s theory of power. The various district school boards of Ontario possess the power to issue students standardized tests. When teachers issue these tests they are essentially utilizing their power, however, Foucault stated that power is not connected to knowledge. Foucault realized that humans react to situations in various ways and power often discourages learning processes. He stated that an individuals behaviour can be altered as a result of power since power has the ability to secretly shape ones life without them noticing. The result of school boards utilizing their power over students by forcing them to write standardized tests has affected students mentally. Students feel an enormous amount of pressure to be successful and feel frustrated when they do not reach a desirable outcome. Moreover, the tests fail to measure the traits that are most important in education as they instead subject students to unnecessary drills. Imagine a student being told that their future is based off a single score they receive on a test. Surely, that student will constantly be under stress and will ultimately not benefit from these tests. c. Research Plan/Explanation of Primary Research The proposal being read today has been developed with thorough research including primary and secondary research. The primary research has been gathered through a five question survey distributed to high school students taking part in a summer school course. The questions asked and the results are listed below. Bolded statements are statistics generated from the results collected. Moreover, secondary research has been gathered through data collected via online sources. Questions: Q1: Standardized tests help you understand the topics being taught in your class 46% agree, 23% unsure, 30% disagree Q2: Standardized tests help you remember subject material in the long term 15% agree, 38% unsure, 46% disagree Q3: Standardized tests are an effective means of measuring student achievement 15% agree, 54% unsure, 31% disagree Q4: Standardized tests have an impact on your mental health and stress levels 100% agree Q5: Standardized tests should be mandatory 14% agree, 77% unsure, 8% disagree d. Ethical Implications During the gathering of research many ethical guidelines were followed. To begin, statistics and assumptions were only generated after gathering of research. For example, the statistics generated were not fictional statistics due to the fact they were collected and analyzed first-hand. This ethical method of gathering research was practiced by social scientist Franz Boas. He firmly believed theories could only be formulated after collection and examination of several hard pieces of evidence. Another guideline followed was presenting the survey only to those currently attending secondary school. For example, the survey was not distributed to teachers, as they do not have the same experience with standardized tests compared to students. By presenting the survey to those with first-hand experience accurate and non-biased results were collected. e. How to Encourage an Equitable Education for Future Students By eliminating standardized tests students will ultimately receive a better education.
Standardized tests are used to evaluate a student’s performance, however, tests do not take external factors into account. This already means that tests are often inaccurate methods of measuring a students academic potential. Also, the tests do a disservice to students as they evaluate their proficiency at a time of testing, rather than their growth and improvement over the course of the year. The tests have become an outdated method of challenging students and only have negative impacts at this point. The tests develop high levels of stress in students, which is not healthy for an individual during the most important development years of their lives. Eliminating these tests will assist students in the long run as they can accommodate more time towards learning information rather than stressing over a single test. By replacing tests with more in-class lessons students will be free of constant stress and still learn the curriculum. Research shows that students are unable to remember information on standardized tests in the long run, therefore, by spending more time learning and understanding information, students are able to have a better understanding of topics. Therefore, by removing standardized tests students will be provided with a better, more effective, and fair educational …show more content…
environment. f. Why This Proposal Should be Accepted This proposal should be accepted as it will ultimately benefit the students of Ontario in the long run. It is known as a basic principle that in order to create and encourage a more tolerant and open-minded future, we must properly educate our youth. Accepting the proposal will allow the government of Ontario to be one step closer to developing one of the best education structures globally. Moreover, individuals who are educated are more likely to become employed and support the Canadian economy. Therefore, a conclusion can be reached that better education benefits both students and the government of Ontario in the long run. g. Conclusion To conclude, bettering the education system of Ontario cannot be accomplished instantaneously. Improvement can only be created one step at a time. Taking the step to remove standardized tests will be a step worth taking, as the benefits will become easily recognizable in the future. The advantages of removing standardized tests vastly outnumber the disadvantages. Thank you for reading this proposal and your time and consideration is much appreciated. a. Self-reflection Personally, I believe that Kathleen Wynne will accept my proposal.
Kathleen Wynne has been known to be a more open individual in government compared to others. For example, she introduced a new sex education curriculum which was much more diverse and detailed in comparison to the previous one. By breaking barriers and introducing the curriculum, it shows Kathleen is open to new ideas, which is how I think she would see this proposal. Moreover, I also included many disadvantages of tests, which will allow Kathleen to see their negative effects and be more encouraged to remove tests altogether. Education is a very important part of an individuals life, so making even a slight improvement would be
beneficial.
Parents and advocates of education can all agree that they want their students to be in the best hands possible in regards to education. They want the best teachers, staffs, and schools to ensure their student’s success. By looking at the score results from standardized testing, teachers can evaluate effectively they are doing their job. On the other side, a proponent for eliminating standardized testing would argue that not all students care passionately about their education and will likely not perform to expectations on the test. However, receiving the numerical data back, teachers can construe the student’s performances and eliminate the outliers of the negligent kids. Teachers can then look at the individual scores and assign those outliers to get the help they need in school. This helps every student getting an equal chance at education. Overall, taking a practice standardized test can let a teacher look at individual questions and scores and interpret what they need to spend more time on teaching. A school also can reap the benefits from standard testing to ensure they are providing the best possible education they can. The school can look at the average scores from a group and hold the teacher accountable for the student’s results on the test. The school can then determine the best course of action to pursuit regarding the teacher’s career at the school. By offering teachers and schools the opportunity to grow and prosper, standardized testing is a benefit for the entire education
This is precisely the problem. Standardized tests are old and outdated, and the harm they cause to America’s education system by far outweighs the benefits. These tests were intended to monitor and offer ways to improve how public schools function, but instead they have impaired the natural learning ability of students and imposed upon the judgment of experienced educators. Although a means to evaluate the progress of public schools is necessary, it is also necessary to develop more modern and effective ways of doing so. Standardized testing mandated by the federal and state governments has a negative effect on the education of America’s youth.
A scholarly journal written by an anonymous author sheds light on the importance of standardized testing by showing its efficiency in higher level education. This article provides a solid counterargument for the use of standardized tests which is standardized tests being a good source of predicting grades throughout college as well as whether students will stay long enough to graduate. It is also able to establish that the SAT is effective in forecasting a grade-point average through the fourth year as well as predicting students study habits. The
Standardized tests have been used to see how much a child has learned over a certain period of time. These tests have been a highly debated issue with many parents and just people in general. In the article “Opting out of standardized tests? Wrong answer,” the author Michelle Rhee argues that people should not be trying to opt out of standardized tests because it allows the country to see how much a child has learned and the things they need to improve. On the other hand, in the article “Everything You’ve Heard About Failing Schools Is Wrong,” the author Kristina Rizga argues that standardized tests are not an efficient way to measure a student’s intelligence.
Some may say standardized tests are a wonderful thing for schools to test their students but I'm here to tell you why they are bad. The standardized tests have too many problems that need to be changed. There is problems with how many are taken and they need to be fixed. There are too many problems with these tests and the government needs to modify them. So this essay will explain that standardized tests are bad and they need to be fixed, because kids take too many of them, countries who take less are outscoring us, and they are too low quality.
Meaghan, Diane, and Francois Casas. Bias in standardized testing and the misuse of test scores: Exposing the Achilles heel of education reform. Canadian Centre Policy Alternatives, 2004. 35-50. eBook. (Meaghan and Casas 35-50)
Standardized testing is not the best way to measure how well a teacher teaches or how much a student has learned. Schools throughout the United States put their main focus on standardized tests; these examinations put too much pressure on the teachers and students and cause traumatizing events. Standardized testing puts strain on teachers and students causing unhealthy occurrences, Common Core is thrown at teachers with no teaching on how to teach the new way which dampers testing scores for all students, and the American College Test determines whether a child gets into college or not based on what they have learned during high school. Standardized tests are disagreeable; tests should not determine ranking of people.
Students dread the time of the year when they stop with their course material and begin to prepare for test. Everyone is in agreement that some type of revolution is needed when it comes to education; eliminating standardized test will aid the reform. The need for standardized testing has proven to be ineffective and outdated; some leading educationalist also believe this because the tests do not measure a student’s true potential. This will save money, stop labeling, and alleviate stress in students and teachers.
tests were primarily employed as measures of student achievement that could be reported to parents, and as a means of noting state and district trends (Moon 2) . Teachers paid little attention to these tests, which in turn had little impact on curriculum. However, in the continuing quest for better schools and high achieving students, testing has become a central focus of policy and practice. Standardized tests are tests that attempt to present unbiased material under the same, predetermined conditions and with consistent scoring and interpretation so that students have equal opportunities to give correct answers and receive an accurate assessment. The idea is that these similarities allow the highest degree of certainty in comparing result...
... Evaluation. Opposing Viewpoints School Reform. Ed. Noah Berlatsky. Detroit: Christine Nasso, 2011 129-133. Print.
Standardized testing has become something of a norm under the No Child Left Behind Act. It has left the student and teacher responsible in having high test scores and has forced teachers to teach directly by the curriculum. What standardized testing does do is help develop memory, but at the cost of creativity (Emanuel 9-10). This is the problem behind standardized testing is that it has become linear and obsolete (Emanuel 9-10). It has been noticed by many for example Sir Ken Robinson said,” Testing in principal is a logical way of measuring student knowledge”, but he continues by saying that, “In practice it creates a very dry learning environment”. This shows that the No Child Left Behind Act and standardized testing is not working, but why and how can it be fixed.
Standardized testing is not an effective way to test the skills and abilities of today’s students. Standardized tests do not reveal what a student actually understands and learns, but instead only prove how well a student can do on a generic test. Schools have an obligation to prepare students for life, and with the power standardized tests have today, students are being cheated out of a proper, valuable education and forced to prepare and improve their test skills. Too much time, energy, and pressure to succeed are being devoted to standardized tests. Standardized testing, as it is being used presently, is a flawed way of testing the skills of today’s students.
Instead, it is stifling the individual talents and abilities of too many students and killing their motivation to learn” (16). Growing up, I have always enjoyed learning. In my sophomore year of high school, many subjects have weakened my motivation to learn. For example, AP World History was great until the exam came into place. It was enjoyable learning about history all over the world, but then we had to spend many weeks preparing for the standardized test. It was terrible because we were cramming everything we learned to perform well on the test and to pass the requirement for AP credit. It was a mess because we had to rush through all of the multiple choice questions. Overall, I do not like what standardized testing has done to the education
It has been seen that factors like one’s economic and racial background can heavily influence one’s performance on a tests, as they are not given the same opportunities as those given to more affluent students. A student’s emotional well-being is also at stake as many students come out of tests doubting their overall intelligence, even though they were quite confident in the material and so much is hinged on test scores that it places a great deal of pressure on students to do well. Standardized tests also restrict teacher’s ability to learn due to the restrictions that standardized test place on the material being taught, which makes it very hard for teachers to go beyond the required and teach more interesting things. Due to the issues that have arisen from standardized tests many alternative solutions have been used and have been proven to be successful. Some good alternative solutions have been limiting the amount of standardized tests given by sampling a few students, shortening the length of exams, and allotting more time to complete these tests. Other alternatives look to more qualitative approaches in learning by implementing things like projects and portfolios that give an excellent insight to a student’s performance and
Parents and educators might all agree that there’s too much emphasis placed on standardized testing. Schools ar...