Demystifying the Need and Efficacy of Trial Examinations: Perspectives of Students and Teachers and Their Statistical Relationships with Examination Scores

Trial or mock examinations for classes 10 and 12, conducted months before students appear for a high stake, externally administered and evaluated board examinations, came under scrutiny after an educational strategic documented recommended a review on its need and efficacy. Due to a lack of literature on the need and efficacy of trial examinations in Bhutanese educational context, a qualitative inquiry employing interviews with principals and focused group discussions with teachers was conducted to identify potential theories. Teacher accountability, assessment feedback, and prediction of students’ achievement in board examinations were used to justify the need and efficacy of trial examinations, while waste of instructional hours, teacher and student stress were the adverse consequences purported. The objectives of the research were to quantitatively test these assumptions and explore statistical relationships between trial examination and board examination scores. Primary data was collected from 261 teachers and 562 students. Trial and board examinations academic achievement results of 2432 class 10 and 557 class 12 students were collected. Descriptive statistics as well as inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. Results indicate that teachers perceive trial examinations as a necessary evil through which they learn more about students’ knowledge gaps to act upon, rather than being anxious about student achievement. Both students and teachers perceived that trial facilitates improved student achievement, when measured through examination marks. Trial examination marks demonstrate positive, weak to moderate correlation to board examination marks and the relationships are statistically significant. The perceptions that the planning and conduct of trial examinations are a waste of instructional time, lead to teacher and student stress were obtained to be myths. This research contributes to existing literature that low stakes testing programs facilitate improvement in student scores.