Assessing Students’ Minds: Developing Critical Thinking or Fitting into Procrustean Bed

Ulker Shafiyeva
Additional contact information
Ulker Shafiyeva: PhD, Head of the Department of Languages at the Academy of Public Administration under the President of Azerbaijan and Adjunct Writing Instructor at ADA University, Azerbaijan

European Journal of Education Articles, 2021, vol. 4

Abstract: Standardized tests have been applied as student knowledge assessment in many countries, including Azerbaijan. However, studies have shown that standardized tests are not an effective way of measuring students' knowledge because they limit students' creativity and prevent instructors from applying individual teaching methods due to the pressure of passing the tests. The tests do not consider students with different learning abilities and treat them equally, which may not favor some students. Also, teachers are pressured to ensure their students pass the tests, leading to an excessive focus on the topics likely to be set rather than the whole curriculum. The study recommends implementing different assessment methods with no ranking to ensure that students do not memorize for passing tests, eliminate competition, and promote equality in the education sector. The assessment methods should allow students to debate, compare and analyze ideas through critical thinking, inquiring, and understanding for applying the learned knowledge into real life. Thus, the importance of an inquiry-based curriculum and assessment is stressed.

Keywords: Standardized tests; Creativity; Individualism; Critical thinking; Multiple Assessment methods; Azerbaijan; equality; students’ knowledge; inquiry (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://brucol.be/index.php/ejed/article/view/7788 (text/html)
https://brucol.be/files/articles/ejed_v4_i2_21/Shafiyeva.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eur:ejedjr:100

DOI: 10.26417/452bxv17s

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in European Journal of Education Articles from Revistia Research and Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Revistia Research and Publishing ().