There is growing awareness that established structures of higher education are often predicated on problematic assumptions about merit, excellence, and rigor. Doctoral qualifying exams, for example, are required to advance to candidacy in many Ph.D. programs despite decades of documented concerns about the implications of standard modes for…

Standardised International Large-Scale Assessments (ILSAs) have gained prominence in global and national educational discussions. ILSAs claim to offer valuable insights for improving education systems, but their impact on educational policy varies and has become a contested arena. This article analyses how these assessments fed educational…

High-stakes testing (HST) is critical in the educational system of East-Asian countries like China, and the ongoing standards-based reform in many Western countries like the USA. HST has been criticized for corrupting an educational system through means like disengaging students from authentic learning. It seems that students' affective learning…