Washback Effects of High-Stakes Examinations on Teachers’ Perceptions of their Instructional Practices

Abstract

Educational reforms often need help in practical implementation. One noted challenge in Algeria is the under-implementation of the competency-based approach (CBA). While the current literature has attempted to identify the causes of the frequently highlighted under-implementation of the CBA in Algeria, the potential washback effects of high-stakes examinations, particularly the baccalaureate examinations (BAC), still need to be explored. Teachers’ perceptions about the misalignment between examination prerequisites and the competency-based curriculum objectives were overlooked. This study examined the possible washback effects of the high-stakes baccalaureate examinations (BAC) on teachers’ perceptions about their instructional practices and the inefficacious implementation of the CBA. An explanatory quantitative design was adopted. Online questionnaires were administered to 85 English language teachers across diverse Algerian high schools. Using descriptive statistics, the results revealed that BAC examinations were not competency driven. The teachers perceived a clear misalignment between the BAC examinations' objectives, which emphasized measuring language knowledge and skills, and the CBA’s integration pedagogy, which emphasized teaching and measuring competencies. Further, the BAC examination prerequisites induced a marked negative washback effect on teachers’ instructional practices, driving them towards traditional methods aligning with examination content, thereby sidelining the CBA objectives. This consequential misalignment was a pivotal deterrent to the desired educational reforms. Given the influence of examinations such as BAC on instructional strategies, there is an urgent need to synchronize BAC examination objectives with competency-based curriculum objectives to foster genuine and effective implementation of the CBA in classrooms.