Washback Effect

Washback effect, also called backwash, refers to the impact of testing on curriculum design, teaching practices and learning behaviors. Teachers may teach directly to a test's own content while learners focus their effort on whatever aspects of a subject an assessment actually covers. Researchers describe washback as either negative, when a mismatch between a course's stated goals and a test's own focus leads teachers to abandon those goals in favor of test preparation, or positive, sometimes called washforward, when teaching the curriculum and teaching to the test become the same activity because good practice is what the test rewards. Discussion of a test's effect on learning and teaching dates back at least to the nineteenth century, and dedicated research into washback began in the early 1980s as testing outcomes grew more consequential for students, teachers, schools and states alike; the related term systemic validity was coined for the way a test can drive the very instructional changes it is meant only to measure.