Abstract
This qualitative study examined the effects of a high-stakes, standardized test on teachers' instructional planning at a rural school. The research addressed this question: How do mandated curricular standards affect teachers' instructional planning and content selection? Ethnographic interviews (Creswell, 1998) examined four secondary teachers' perceptions of the effects of high-stakes standardized tests on their work. Case study methodology (Yin, 1994) guided the analysis of the data. Each participant had several years' experience teaching at Mollusk Island School, and each teacher had previously included place-based lessons (e.g. environmental studies, cultural history) in his/her repertoire. Ultimately, the study explored how a community maintenance function of small rural schools might be affected by state legislation for standardized accountability. Special thanks to Dr. Daniel P. Hallahan, Chair, Department of Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education, Curry School of Education, University of Virginia, for assistance in funding the researcher's access to Mollusk Island School.
Highlights
The t
Some part1c1pants expressed an appreciation for the guidance the Accountability Assessment (AA) Test offered in helping their selection of appropriate content for instruction - if lhc material appeared on the test it was important enough to teach
While participants expressed an awareness of a need to collaborate with other faculty members at the school, these teachers appeared to collaborate across grade levels less frequently than dtey had before tbc arrival of the AA Tests
Summary
Gcoo·gc Spindler ( 1982) wrote that without the "'-'i'luncc of an out.;;ide observer, na1ives a.re unable to "rcali1c the full implicutions of their own cultural knowled~c and sociol behavior" (p. 490). The researcher annly1..ed each participant's series of interviews accordtng to the framework for case study analysi' (Yon, 1994) ond wrote a case about each particopant. The researcher analy?.ed tbe four cases to~ethcr and odentilied themes tllot emerged from the four testimonio>. As a means to check the ,·ahdoty of the CS~e analyltions and nval propo>ouons he had compo.ed before data analysos. Cross-case analysis seeks "to build ogeneral explanation chot fits each of the individual cases, even though the cases will vary in their details" Pattern matching tS a technique for analyling datu d\lring cross-case analysis. Yin compared this process to performing multiple experiments. The researcher conlpare, an cmptricnlly based pauern \\ith a predicted one If the pouems cooncidc. The procedure invohe> no precise pouem srudy, findings frorn each of the ca>C> were compared against the proposnions
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