Nasreen Sultana

I am a doctoral student at the Faculty of Education at Queen's University, Kingston. I come from high stakes testing background and thus, I am interested to understand how test-takers perceive the influence of the examination on their learning. I find it fascinating to explore what teachers and students do to match the goals of the examination and what they would have done if there was no examination. In the field of language education, this influence of examination on teaching and learning is known as Washback.

I study washback because I am eager to know what real learning would look like in the absence of examinations and the fear of failing in the examination. The question is, can we survive without examinations?