ABSTRACT
High-stakes testing has been with us for over two thousand years and is steadily increasing both in scale and range. This special issue considers some of the main uses of these tests (a term used loosely to cover many forms of assessment) and their impact. Tests become ‘high-stakes’ when the results lead to serious consequences for at least one key stakeholder. These consequences could be educational or occupational life chances for individual candidates. This is the case when, for example, testing is used for selection in education and training or to gain credentials that provide ‘a licence to practise’. Where tests are used for accountability purposes in evaluating performance and to determine whether targets have been met, they become high-stakes for institutions such as schools and colleges, especially if they affect funding and recruitment. Current international comparisons, for instance the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), have introduced a new high-stakes phenomenon – tests that are low-stakes for the individuals taking them and for their schools but high-stakes for politicians, policy makers and governments.
