Teachers’ Perceptions of High Stakes Assessment: Investigating the impact of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement on the practice of teaching in New Zealand

Abstract

High stakes assessment is an increasingly important part of a student’s education. This quantitative study investigates New Zealand secondary school teachers’ perceptions of high stakes assessment in New Zealand, the National Certificate of Educational Achievement, and its impact on teaching and learning. A particular focus of this research was on teachers’ perceptions of the purpose of assessment, how it affected the culture of assessment within a school, and the outcomes of these impacts within the classroom. An anonymous questionnaire was electronically sent to 388 New Zealand secondary schools as well as five subject associations in an attempt to give every teacher an opportunity to respond. The questionnaire asked teachers to rate the impact that different items had on their ability to improve the curriculum; this included the school’s assessment culture, curriculum requirements, and the learning experiences available to their students. Exploratory Factor Analysis identified five factors: teacher workload, external learning connections, school culture, support for NCEA, and perceived barriers. Factor scores were formed to further analyse group differences between factors. Teacher workload was the most pervasive issue across the factors. Significant differences were found according to socioeconomic profile and teaching subject. When separated by socioeconomic profile, teachers from high decile schools were more likely to report a positive school culture, lower teacher workload and less concern with perceived barriers. When compared against teachers of all other teaching subjects, English teachers were found to report higher levels of workload and more issues with perceived barriers. The results of this study have shown that there are multiple facets to the teaching process that impact the quality of curriculum and these are experienced differently by teachers from schools of different deciles and teachers of different subjects. This means that implementation of any assessment or curriculum changes could be more effective when taking into account the different environments in which they are used.