THE REASON FOR TESTING IN SCHOOLS

Testing focuses on learning, teaching and outcomes to provide information woven into the structure of educational practice. It informs the school how well their pupils are learning what teachers are teaching. The information is used by the school to make changes in the learning environment, and is shared with pupils to assist them in improving their learning and study habits. Students’ test performances, individually and collectively, give teachers feedback on the effectiveness of their instruction, guiding lesson planning, instructional pacing, and the organization of individualized or small-group instruction. Low-stakes “formative” assessments assist both students and teachers with ongoing monitoring of student learning, enabling timely intervention when understanding falters. In view of this, we are prompted to write a report based on things teachers’ test, the kind of test, the use they make of the results and problems experienced in testing.
Testing as, “a method of evaluating personality in which an individual, living in a group under partly controlled physical and social conditions, meets and solves a variety of lifelike problems…and is observed and rated.” In testing, learners must be given many opportunities to show the teacher what they know and what they can do. Muzumara (2007:103) is of the view that “testing helps teachers to know their progress, pupils’ strengths and weaknesses, their ability level and how best they need to be taught.” It is a classroom research to provide the improvement of teaching and learning. It about the pupil’s learning and understanding for the purposes of grading and reporting. It is the observation of students in the process of learning, the collection of frequent feedback on pupils’ learning, and the design of modest classroom experiments that provide information on how pupils learn and how they respond to particular teaching approaches. It helps individual teacher obtain useful feedback on what, how much, and how well their pupils are learning.
Pupils are also tested in co-curricular activities. These help in predicting the future needs of pupils. Gawe and Vakalisa (2000:282) state that “the awareness of learners’ progress is not confined to one to two tests.” It involves many activities as it mentioned above. This is very important because it gives them a wider ranger to be graded. When a pupil is not doing well in one area he or she can gain the other grades in the other area.
Testing may focus on grades classroom components other than course content and mastery level. These include discussion to test verbal ability. Individual tests help determine the classifications of students as gifted or learning disabled. The quizzes, unit tests, and final exams that teachers create help determine the pacing of classroom instruction, instructional grouping, and marks and grades, as well as informing students about expectations for learning and about their success in meeting those expectations. The relevant points here are that students are supposed to work at learning “earning” grades, and tests are supposed to reveal what they have accomplished. Tests are fair because they are objective and each student answers the same questions under the same conditions, alone and unaided. These achievement tests motivate and reward effort by providing students with opportunities to demonstrate their learning achievements.
Teachers use graded tests for which the aim is to provide the school with information on what, how much, and how well pupils are learning. Payne (1997:474) contends assessment as “the systematic evaluative appraisal of an individual’s ability and performance in a particular environment or context. Content-specific needs to respond to the particular needs and characteristics of the teachers, pupils, and disciplines to which they are applied. It means of what works in one class will not necessarily work in another.
It determines the degree of achievement of major outcomes of pupils’ course of study. It is concerned with the assignment of final marks or grades. We also recorded verbal tests which are the ones in which language plays a major part. Pupils’ ability to speak and read determines effectiveness on this kind of test. Non-verbal test indicates the pupils’ speed of manipulation, accuracy of movement and sharpness of perception. The use of language is minimized but not eliminated.
On performance test, the pupil is asked to perform an act, much as he or she would in a real-life or repeat a series of digits given to him or her orally. A group test is one of rating scales. It is one which a number of pupils must take simultaneously. On the other hand, an individual test is one which requires one examiner for each examines. The test may be classed according to their purposes.
Aptitude tests are designed to indicate the pupils’ capacity to learn. The most common are intelligence tests. Tests of reading-readiness are common. When it comes to achievement tests, there is an indication of the pupils’ level of performance in specific academics areas such as reading, spelling, mathematics, language usage, comprehension etc. Mehan (2008, p. 46) nicely summarizes the traditional argument for achievement tests as a basis for grading, promotion, and college admissions: “Pupils are placed in environments where they can achieve through their effort and hard work.” Pupils have the opportunity to compete with peers and are judged on the basis of their individual performance. The meritocratic thesis defines educational success as a matter of individual effort and hard work.

Policy makers seize upon performance assessments as a way to encourage higher-order thinking and problem solving in the classroom. The hope is to harness the power of measurement-driven instruction for good with tests that they would want teachers to teach. On the other hand, Tests are intended to monitor and enforce adherence to a prescribed curriculum.
Schools also use results to refocus their teaching to help pupils make their learning more efficient and more effective. The purpose is to focus the primary attention of teachers and pupils on observing and improving pupil learning rather than on observing and improving teaching. Standardized tests inform people about the effectiveness of the public schools they are supporting. Test-score based accountability is creating a rationale for rejecting two thirds of our students as unworthy of higher education. During the course pupils are assessed in order to see if they can be moved to the next educational stage. The scores on these tests are used by schools to make decisions about kids--to retain students, as screening devices for middle school and high school entrance, for entry into gifted or accelerated programs, and to decide which kids need remediation. They are part of a great sort and select machine within school systems.
Using same tests for all pupils, those in well-funded posh schools along with students trying to learn in under-funded, ill-equipped schools is grossly unfair, and the outcome is quite predictable. Since pupils do not receive equal educations, holding identical expectations for all pupils places the poorer ones at a disadvantage. Data confirm that females, poor pupils and those with disabilities are disproportionately failing high tests. School districts with the greatest numbers of poor children fail test, even after taking it for a second time. Even moderate income differences could result in major test score differences.
There are, of course, competing accounts of the ways testing functions in our educational system. The fairness and objectivity of educational tests become less clear when differences in educational opportunity are considered. If educational success is determined by factors other than individual aptitude and effort, then sorting and selecting based on test performance may be regarded as quite unfair. In short, achievement reflects both individual effort and educational opportunity. Educational opportunity, in turn, comprises both within-school and out-of-school factors. Within-school factors, including access to highly qualified teachers and other resources, are unequally distributed. Out-of-school factors, including home and community resources, are also unequal. The simplified logic of a meritocracy in which students compete on an equal basis ignores both in-school and out-of-school differences in opportunity to learn.
In addition, tests that students must complete alone and unaided, in competition with others, perform well with a view of knowledge as an individual possession, carried inside the heads of learners. Adherence to that view may create a gap between conceptions of mathematics or science in the classroom versus the contexts of professional practice. Along with the view of knowledge as an individual possession, our accustomed testing practices fit comfortably with a knowledge transmission model of schooling, in which the teacher and textbook are sources of knowledge and students are its (more or less passive) recipients. That said, conventional modes of assessment by no means rule out students’ active engagement with the subject matter.
The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives drew attention to the tendency for item writers to focus on low-level skills rather than “higher-order thinking. The emphasis on objectivity leads to tests posing well-structured problems with a single right answer of a pre-determined form. In this view, schooling should equip students to approach new problems and figure out what they would need to learn in order to solve them. This is a sophisticated version of “learning to learn” as a goal of schooling.
In conclusion, Tests are central in education sector. They provide a feedback to what is taught and it helps into the sorting and selecting process at the point of college admissions. High school exit examinations are viewed as a form of quality assurance, but also stand as significant barriers to completion for substantial numbers of pupils. Government testing systems define school-level success or failure, and a range of sanctions are imposed if scores fall short of targeted levels. We have also looked at the impact of tests and have noted that using same tests for all pupils is grossly unfair because pupils do not receive equal educations.

REFERENCES
Gawe, N. et al (2002) Teaching-Learning Dynamics. Johannesburg: Heinemann Higher and Further Education Ltd.
Hammond, L. and Snowden, J. (2005). A Good Teacher in Every Classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Macmillan (2002). English Dictionary for advanced learners. Oxford: Macmillan publishers
Mehan, N. (2008). Test and learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Muzumara, P. M. (2007). Becoming an Effective Science Teacher. Chongwe: Nistcol.
Nitko, A (1996) Educational Assessment of Students. Ohio: Prentice-Hall International ltd.
Oliver, A. L (1977) Curriculum Improvement. New York: Harper and Row.
Payne, S (1997) Validity of assessment. Montréal: University Press